14 DAY TRIAL // Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices has some big plans for its fans, as the chipmaker will reportedly updated both of its CPU and GPU lineups with new products due out in the near future. Aside from the already rumored 45nm-based processors, the company also plans to add a new Radeon graphics card, which will be largely based on the GPU of its current Radeon HD 4830 (RV770LE). According to recent reports, AMD is planning the launch of the Radeon HD 4730, which will be featured with the RV770CE GPU.
As indicated by a recent post on Expreview, the upcoming card will still take advantage of AMD's latest 55nm manufacturing technology and be released as a shrunk version of the Radeon HD 4830, which is based on the RV770LE graphics processing unit. However, the Radeon 4730 is based on the new RV770CE GPU and will be paired with GDDR5 memory chips, for increased performance. As far as technical specifications go, the card's core and memory frequencies have been set to 700/900Mhz respectively.
AMD will apparently launch said card as an alternative to NVIDIA's low-power, mainstream GeForce 9600GT 512MB video accelerator. In addition, according to available reports, the new card will allow AMD to provide its fans with a solution to the shortages of Radeon HD 4830 GPUs. As far as performance goes, we still have to wait for some of the early benchmarks.
PowerColor will be among the first to unveil the new card, as the company's design has already been leaked on the Internet, featuring a red PCB and an AC L2 Pro cooler. The card apparently requires a considerable amount of power, as it has been featured with a 6-pin external power connector. The card is expected to become available next week for a price of US$79.