AMD launches HD 2900 PRO!

Finally, after waiting for a few months, my sober towards graphics card industry has a bit 'subsided'. AMD finally launches a new graphics card dubbed HD 2900 Pro, which nicely fills the big gap between HD 2600 XT and HD 2900 XT.

Basically, here's the outline of the card: it is basically the same card as 2900 XT but with lower core and memory clock ( however, rumours are circling around that the memory uses 512-bit ringbus and not 1024-bit as in 2900 XT. We'll see how this comes out later!). Of course, this card comes with 320 stream processors!

2900 Pro will come in 512 MB and 1 GB memory configuration. For 1 GB flavour, the card might comes in two types: one sporting 9-inch HSF cooler, and another one with 12-inch version. Among the earliest vendors to manufacture the card are Sapphire, PowerColor and HIS.

Now this is the best part: 512 MB version will retail at $249 and 1 GB at $299! This definitely makes this card appealing to budget gamers like me, although I can anticipate that this card might have a hard time competing with 8800 GTS 320 MB!

Nevertheless, with at least $50 less, 2900 Pro has already grab some attention from the budget department. I do hope that 8800 GTS 320 MB arrogant pricing will get some aggressive reductions immediately after this, as I've always wanted it to be.

Are you a BMW M3 lover?

I just came across a post in NFS-Planet regarding a freeware game called BMW M3 Challenge, which is developed by 10tacle Studios, the developer of 'GT Legends'. The game is created as an introduction of some sort to IAA (International Motor Show) in Frankfurt Germany.

By the looks from the screenshots below, I'm not sure if the game is going to stress my 7800 GT; it just looks plain and simple. However, as I'm currently downloading it, I hope it will be entertaining and close to simulation. The only little thing I regret personally is that the game features the new M3 E90, not M3 E46 (GTR or CSL) that I love very much.

Have a try by visiting their site on the link above.

More pics of NFS: Pro Street

It's about two months since the last time I posted here. The reason was apart of being glued to my job, I find the graphics industry seems to be static at the moment. HD 2900 XT isn't a threat to NVIDIA's top range graphics card, which means, my dream card 8800 GTS 320MB isn't offered a reduction in price as well. Damn, it's been a year already! This is what happens when there is no competition around! Do they really have to wait for Crysis or UT2K7 to bring them to their knees before releasing the newer cards??

Enough rants already, I hereby provide some more photos of the anticipated (I think!) PC racing game, NFS Pro Street. Hopefully, it will live up to its hype, this November 1st.