AMD R7 Series - A Little more Inside About the R7 Series

A follow up on my previous post from AMD's GPU14 tech day for those you are dying to know a little bit more detail for AMD's "budget" graphics cards. As we all know AMD have developed these graphics cards for everyday gamers who want a boost their PC performance but still keep up with their finances. Do not fret, gamers because AMD had designed the R7 series graphics cards to deliver optimal performance with enhanced graphics.

Okay now for the tini-tiny bit of detail about these graphics cards. The R7 Series is based on the acclaimed award-winning AMD architecture which is "Graphics Core Next" or GCN in popular terms, meaning having this kind of architecture the R7 series graphics cards are enable for the Mantle technology (see my previous post for further detail). In addition, the said graphics cards are bundled with AMD's App Acceleration feature, which can accelerate graphics performance because of GCN that can perform powerful parallel computing capabilities. And in closing, the said graphics cards are also enabled for AMD TrueAudio Technology (see my previous post for further detail).

For additional tech stuff:

Product Specifications

Product Model	R7 240	R7 250	R7 260X
Price	$69	$89	$139
Stream Processors	320	384	896
Engine Clock	Up to 780 MHz	Up to 1.05 GHz	Up to 1.1 GHz
Compute Performance	499 GFLOPS	806 GFLOPS	1.97 TFLOPS
Memory Configuration	1GB GDDR5 or 2GB DDR3 / 128-bit	1GB GDDR5 or 2GB DDR3 / 128-bit	2GB GDDR5 / 128-bit
API Support	DirectX® 11.2 OpenGL 4.3 Mantle	DirectX® 11.2 OpenGL 4.3 Mantle	DirectX® 11.2 OpenGL 4.3 Mantle

Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea - First Five Minutes

   

     Oh My Glob, I can't believe it they are making this! Bioshock fans rejoice!

     Oh sorry, Hi there! Today Irrational Games posted a video about the first five minutes of Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea.





     The video features Elizabeth and private detective Booker.I think Elizabeth here is the Elizabeth at the first installment of Bioshock Infinite. The first DLC was Clash in the Clouds and some say that if you are more of the action type of gamer this is the DLC for you, but for gamers like me that focuses more on the story this new DLC is for you! Now Burial at Sea will take you back to RAPTURE. Yes, you read it right Rapture the place of Bioshock and Bioshock 2 but a little different because back at these two games we started out with Rapture being in a fallen state. But this Burial at Sea will take you back to Rapture in its prime state, yes, back to time to tell you about its corrupt history. And yes the developers have promised that you will see some familiar faces 'insert screaming little girl sound here', and in addition this DLC is a love letter to the fans according to Ken Levine, creative director and co-founder of Irrational Games. faints*

     Sadly I haven't played Bioshock 2, Infinite, and Clash in the clouds yet. Bioshock 2 because of time constraints, and the other two because my laptop cant handle that kind of graphics. But for those who want and wants to play Burial at Sea, good news because it will be a two episode DLC, first as Booker and the second as Elizabeth. The said DLC will be expected to be available for $15.

New Battlefield 4 Multiplayer Modes Revealed by DICE!

     Celebrate FPS players for the long awaited Battlefield 4 is making another step forward as they develop the said game closer to hot the shelves! Looking closely on the Battlefield Official Blog, they have shown seven different multiplayer modes playable in 10 different maps, that will become available on ship later this year.

These modes are:

     Conquest Mode - described as “the quintessential Battlefield mode”, will be playable in the Battlefield 4 beta and is designed for 24 players on Xbox 360 and PS3 and 64 players on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

     Domination - Its basically the fast paced infantry only of conquest mode, this has been introduced on Battlefield 3 as “Close Quarters”. And this mode is for 20 players across platforms!

     Obliteration - Its like Counter Strike in a sense that there is only one bomb to pick up and drop it off at one of their opponent’s three “objectives” by simply arming the bomb and destroying the opponent’s objective. Quoting from EA, “since there’s only one bomb at a time, you will often find yourself going from attacker to defender in the blink of an eye.” Sounds exciting, and to top it off its designed for 24 players on PS3 and Xbox 360, while 32 on PS4, Xbox one and PC.

     Diffuse – is a mode were each player is given only a single life. The objective of the mode is to either wipe the opposing squad or by arming and detonating an enemy objective. On all platforms this is played for 5 vs 5.

     Deathmatch – is a game played for 20 players on all platforms.

     Rush – is a game played for 24 players on PS3 and Xbox 360, while 32 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC)

     Squad DeathMatch – Designed for 16 players on all platforms.

And take note the release date for its beta game is October 1 2013, so what are you waiting for?

AMD GPU14 Tech Day, PC Gamers Celebrate!

  Hey there! September 25, 2013 was a great day indeed for GPU manufacturers, AMD,  because the long awaitd AMD GPU14 tech day event happened and they had a lot of announcement regarding their upcoming new releases of graphics cards, finally NVIDIA will experience some competition! Though the announce was vague in a sense that there were no exact release dates given, ahww such a shame, but of course some promises in the near future wouldn’t hurt to get excited would it? 

AMD Radeon R7 and R9 Series.

     Of course if you are a gamer, I consider this as a hobby so I’m not a gamer, there are two problems that they encounter most of the time which are; wallet size and preferences. AMD made two types of graphics card depending on what type of gamer you are. If you are the type that doesn’t have much of a wallet size but to live up to the name of being a gamer the AMD R7 series if the best fit for you. On the other hand if you are the type that money is not issue type of thing the AMD R9 series is the best fit for you. Depending on the price tag, the GPU had different amount of memory in it and of course the memory is not the whole story here, each GPU introduced was tested under 3DMark Firestrike. 

AMD Radeon R7 250

VRAM: 1GB GDDR

Price: <$89

3DMark Firestrike: >2000

AMD Radeon R7 260X

VRAM: 2GB GDDR

Price: $139

3DMark Firestrike: >3700

AMD Radeon R9 270X

VRAM: 2GB GDDR

Price: $199

3DMark Firestrike: >5500

AMD Radeon R9 280X

VRAM: 3GB GDDR

Price: $299

3DMark Firestrike: >6800

AMD Radeon R9 290X

VRAM: 4 GB GDDR

Price: TBD

3DMark Firestrike: See below

Well since AMD is a competitor for GPU manufacturing industry beating the top of the line products is a must to change the game for the industry. Though the R9 290X doesn’t have some specs revealed it had some "so called" promising features to be expected from the said GPU, like it scoring above 8000 on the 3DMark, a 512-bit memory bus, and possibily beating NVIDIA’s most powerful GTX Titan in terms of performance.  

The event went into further detail on AMD's ace-in-the-hole. Here's the rest of what they had to say:

 - The R9 290X will use the GCN (Graphics Core Next)      Architecture

 - It's enhanced to support DirectX 11.2

 - It has more than 6 Billion Transistors

 - It has over 300 GB/sec Memory Bandwidth

 - It can compute over 5 TFLOPS

 - It can render more than 4 Billion Triangles/sec

AMD TrueAudio Technology

    Well, AMD really wanted to change the game, because they didn’t just focus on bringing exquisite graphics experience but also in terms of audio experience. They introduced “AMD TrueAudio”, yey players! This technology is a fully programmable audio engine for developers, geeks, to play with. Well if that’s the case we will be able to experience more vibrant gameplay by enriching the sounds output in 7.1 channel and 2.0 channels for those players that bought expensive headphones or simple stereo speakers. This technology is expected to be available on R7 260X, R9 290, and R9 290X. 

Mantle

    In the said event they also introduced what they call Mantle. Basically, in the nutshell, this is a low level application programming interface for PCs that optimizes games to run on AMD Hardware, and also to assist game developers to port games to different platforms, you rock AMD!

AMD Gaming Evolved App

     The final announcement was about the AMD Gaming Evolved App powered by Raptr. Which is basically an app for PC. This app can function as an auto-optimizer that supports 28 select games depending on the current PC rig. Another function of this app is to get rewards when playing games through this client, with also some functionalities like broadcast via twitch, stream watching, screenshot taking, and some sharing function on facebook, and twitter without leaving the game!

Batman: Arkham Origins Introduces its Extra Hard Mode - I Am The Night

It was revealed that WB Games Montreal’s upcoming video game, Batman: Arkham Origins will have an extra hard mode after the players have completed the main game and New Game Plus.

The recent interview with Eurogamer, producer Guillaume Voghel, explained that after the player is done with the main mode and New Game Plus, the player will be given a though mode, I Am The Night, which does not allow the players to save and that they will be given only one life.

 “The main narrative arc and side missions last about 12 hours and then you have all the collectibles. To get 100 % of that will take much, much longer. We have a new difficulty level, New Game Plus is coming back – that’s really difficult – and when you’re done with that there’s 'I Am The Night' mode – which has no saves and one life”, he explained.

Furthermore, the game’s next DLC titled Initiation will give the players a background story about Batman. The players will be Bruce Wayne before he became Batman.

Batman: Arkham Origins will be released for PC, Wii U, Playstation and Xbox 360 on October 25, 2013.