It was a veritable smörgåsbord of AMD information yesterday as vendors revealed the EOL schedule for a suite of CPUs and AMD Japan introduced the firm’s platform roadmap throughout 2011.

Kicking off the information dump, Digitimes assembled an end-of-life schedule for Phenom/Athlon II CPUs on the word of motherboard vendors. These dates are not when the CPUs will no longer be available in stores, but rather when they will no longer be sold to channel partners. One can imagine that the retail stocks will remain healthy for a while after channel sales end, but the CPUs are as good as gone within a quarter. Vendors also put their two cents in to confirm prior speculation that AMD was preparing a hexa-core desktop chip, codenamed Thuban.

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AMD has recently released two DirectX 11 technical demos that are designed to run on the firm’s lineup of Radeon HD 5000-series GPUs. The new demos highlight features made possible by the advent of DirectX 11.

Ladybug demo

The Ladybug demo shows how DirectX 11’s Direct Compute architecture, which standardizes and facilitates GPU processing, can be used to simulate lens-accurate depth of field. Depth of field is a cinematography technique used to draw the draw the viewer’s eye, or to enhance emotion, by unfocusing unimportant scene elements. The specific technique used in this demo is called “lens-accurate” because it perfectly imitates the dynamics of a traditional camera lens.

Notice that blur increases as a function of distance from the virtual lens.

If you decide to try either of the two demos, Ladybug is certainly the more impressive of the two. We’ve had some time to play with and observe the demo on a large display, and trust us when we say it looks outstanding.
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Spoiling the party is a time-honored tradition in the unending rivalry between AMD and Intel. So when we heard that Intel was launching a pair of new Core i7 CPUs, we knew something from AMD wouldn’t be far behind. Sure enough, AMD has turned up the heat with a trio of price cuts on the firm’s top Phenom II X4 CPUs.

Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition

Old price: $249.99
New Price: $215.99
Percentage: 13.6%

Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition

Old price: $189.99
New Price: $179.99
Percentage: 5.26%

Phenom II X4 945

Old price: $169.99
New Price: $165.99
Percentage: 5.88%

The Athlon II X4 (Propus) die

While enthusiasts are obsessed with flagship CPUs or finding the next Celeron 300C, it’s easy to forget that much of the world is planted firmly in the mainstream. There are no $300 CPUs, massive heatsinks, or multiplier unlocks here. A discrete GPU is a luxury. The very mention of overclocking elicits blank stares. But even if the market is largely a morass of uninspired chips, the mainstream occasionally offers a few surprises, and the Athlon II X4 620 is one of them.

It’s not easy to evaluate a chip which deliberately shrugs the trappings of performance systems; benchmarks merely highlight the architectural compromises that go into hitting a $100 price point. Instead, we felt it would be more valuable to find something it’s uniquely excellent at–an expertise that cannot be expressed in numbers.

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According to reports, AMD is preparing to launch new parts in their Athlon II X2 and Athlon II X3 lineup.

In all, Fudzilla reports that five chips are in the pipeline, including the Athlon II X3 425 at 2.7GHz, 435 at 2.9GHz and 445 at 3.1GHz, as well as the low-power Athlon II X2 235e and 240e chips clocked at 2.7GHz and 2.8GHz, respectively. While not immediately on the docket, he also says that 45w Ranas known as the 400e and 405e will eventually tip up at 2.2 and 2.3GHz. The parts should launch on or around October 22.

Despite last week’s grim news, my lapel mic is not actually dead. In fact, it makes a triumphant return this week, as I suffer through the terribly low temperatures of Elkhart, IN!

In this week’s edition of Mind of UPSLynx, I address a burning question: Did I actually chuck a PC off the balcony? More seriously, we learned that if you are a fugitive on the run, do not post messages and pictures on Facebook. Speaking of idiots, how about Pepsi and their new iPhone app?

Want the lowdown on workstation GPUs? Icrontic has you covered with a look at the ATI FirePro V8750. Lastly, the DirectX 11 gaming roadmap has emerged, and it looks like massive amounts of win.

Hollywood is intense. Today, you can go see a film like District 9 or Transformers 2 and be awed by the computer generated visual effects–imagery that mimics the nuances of reality to an unbelievable degree–and not even realize the minute details going in to the production of a shot or, more importantly, the astounding hardware used to create those effects. Animation and VFX studios use impressive machines to bring these films to life. These artists are not relying on Radeon and GeForce GPUs to render their work. No, they pull in the big guns–the workstation boards–to do the heavy lifting.

The workstation GPU market is vastly different than the desktop GPU market, despite radically similar hardware configurations. ATI and NVIDIA both offer workstation solutions, named the FirePro and Quadro lines, respectively. The drivers set these units apart from their desktop gaming-centric cousins. These graphics cards are fine-tuned and optimized to work exceedingly well in 3D and graphics packages, such as Autodesk Maya, Softimage, and 3D Studio Max. They are built with the professional artist in mind, not the high-end gamer and, as a result, the target audience of a workstation board is radically different.

I/O ports on the V8750.

Studios today deal with intense graphics production pipelines. Any and all rendering time is valuable, and costs money. These artists don’t need machines that can render a low polygon scene with pixel shader effects at 60+ frames per second. What they need are machines with hardware that can supplement viewport performance in applications, calculate incredibly complex object physics, and render out an image with thousands of elements, anti-aliasing, shader effects, applied simulations, ray tracing, and whatever else the shot calls for, and it needs to do all of this really, really fast.

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While the ongoing antitrust battle being waged in Europe between chip giants Intel and AMD is fresh and memorable, few recall that a similar battle has been unfolding in a US District Court in Delaware since 2005. The case has remained quiet for years as the two parties glacially worked their angles, but the action heated up yesterday when both firms filed to sanction the other.

Both motions accuse the other of faulty data retention practices which have lead to a destruction of evidence.

AMD’s position (PDF)

“Intel could have easily avoided this evidence preservation fiasco, had it and its counsel exercised a modicum of diligence in designing and implementing an effective document preservation program,” their filing reads.

The “fiasco” AMD references is later specified as, “Intel’s much-heralded, high-vaunted, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempt at remediation.”

AMD continues: “At the heart of Intel’s preservation problems was its failure to disarm an aggressive auto-delete system, despite uncontroverted authority required it do so…It’s auto-delete shredder continued to run without any safety net.”

“In sum, Intel’s feckless attempts at preservation have left AMD without the benefit of at least hundreds of thousands and probably over a million relevant documents with which to prosecute its case,” they conclude. “How many exactly were permanently lost, AMD will never know.”

AMD has asked the judge to order the jury to assume that the destroyed documents were favorable to AMD. They further request that Intel be on the hook for the fees necessary to confirm and execute their motion.

Intel’s position (PDF)

Intel’s motion alleges that AMD exaggerated its document preservation efforts in bringing a suit against Intel, saying, “AMD misrepresented its efforts and tried to hide its failures from the court and Intel.”

“Ever since Intel disclosed its problems in 2007, AMD claimed to have an ‘exemplary’ scheme to retain documents in this case. It is now clear that AMD did not, and that some AMD executives and employees failed to retain thousands of documents and e-mails,” claims Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy.

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AMD’s next-generation ultra-thin platform is said to launching within a few weeks, according to a report by Digitimes.

Congo is the firm’s newest platform designed to fill the $599-$1499 bracket with so-called Ultra Thins that handily exceed Netbook performance with similar dimensions. The new platform combines a refreshed Athlon Neo MV-40 CPU with the M780G chipset for HD-capable graphics and the possibility of Hybrid CrossFireX.

AMD's perspective on the Ultra Thin's market position.

Congo is designed to succeed the Yukon platform which powers products like Hewlett-Packard dv2 Ultra Thin.

Value ultra thin platforms by the numbers.

For more information on the Yukon, Congo, and the new Athlon Neo revision, Icrontic published an in-depth analysis in June.

ATI has just recently published a new beta for their Stream SDK, a package designed to assist developers in creating GPGPU apps for ATI graphics adapters. The new package primarily adds OpenCL 1.0 support and, while all of that is well and good, it has also tipped the firm’s hand by revealing evidence of the Radeon HD 5900 series.

A quick peek at the new INF file for the SDK-compatible GPU driver lists the following entries:

“ATI Radeon HD 5900 Series” = ati2mtag_Evergreen, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_689C
“EG CEDAR” = ati2mtag_Evergreen, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_68E8
“EG CYPRESS” = ati2mtag_EvergreenGL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6888
“EG JUNIPER” = ati2mtag_EvergreenGL, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_68A8
“EG REDWOOD    ” = ati2mtag_Evergreen, PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_68DE

What the 5900 constitutes is anyone’s guess. If history is any indicator, it should be a juiced-up version of the 5870 with higher frequencies as a result of improved yields.

Rounding out the list, we see Cypress (Radeon HD 5870/5850), Juniper (Radeon HD 5770/5750), and Cedar and Redwood which have not yet shown in the market. Those cards are believed to be low-end adapters suitable for the OEM channel.

This week I retreated to the safety of my home where I cannot be bothered by Dunigan and his boozing antics. I also come bearing a beard; get your man on, Icrontic.

NVIDIA talked and gave us some goods regarding their stance on Bullet Physics. Left 4 Dead 2 is pulling in an incredible amount of preorders and is on track to be one of Valve’s best selling titles yet.

Also, big news with [redacted], so definitely don’t miss that! Thrax tells us how to upgrade from RC to RTM once Windows 7 is released, and the final boss of Icrontic, Primesuspect, is chosen to be on the judging panel for Last Gadget Standing at CES 2010. Finally, I have an old Dell, and it is no longer working.

If it’s Friday, it’s Mind of UPSLynx.

Last week Thursday the world caught its first glimpse of the Radeon HD 5750, but now its big brother, the Radeon HD 5770, is out to play with benchmarks as well.

In all, the card appears to be a touch slower than the Radeon HD 4890, GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 275 in DirectX 10, while it keeps up with the joneses in lesser DirectX levels. This breakdown could be explained by test cards using 512MB GDDR5, but the retail version is expected to improve to 1024MB.

Like the 5750, the Radeon HD 5770 also uses a 128-bit memory bus for a grand total of 76.8GBps, or about 500MBps than its little brother. Other improvements made to the 5770 include 800 stream processors to the 5750’s 720, a 50MHz memory clockspeed hike to 1200MHz, and a core frequency boost from 700MHz to 825MHz.

If the performance doesn’t seem all that marvelous, consider its expected MSRP of $190. That puts the squeeze on the GTX 275, a $200 card that’s significantly more expensive for Green to produce.

Both the HD 5770 and the 5750 are expected to launch in just a few days.