We’ve been hearing about ATI’s external graphics schemes for years, but apparently XGP is finally ready to go. The platform houses an external graphics card — ATI-branded, of course — which connects to your laptop via a proprietary 4.0Gbps PCIe 2.0 connector. The new tech is being initially launched with AMD’s new ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800, which can work in a multi-GPU CrossFireX configuration with your laptop’s internal graphics card. The first out of the gate with the tech is Fujitsu’s AMILO Sa 3650, which packages a Mobility Radeon HD 3870 cardbut there’s still no word pricing or exactly when or where this all is shipping. XGP also supports some extra USB 2.0 ports, Blu-ray decoding, and outputs over HDMI with integrated audio and DVI, powering up to four displays.

AMD’s on a roll at Computex, and it’s keeping the stream alive with two more decently important announcements. First off, the company is making the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 official, which is said to “triple top-of-the-line graphics performance in comparison to the previous generation ATI Mobility Radeon GPUs.” The unit also enables laptop makers to include CrossFireX technology for the first time, so yeah, there’s that. Moving on, we’ve got the low down on its PowerXpress technology, which enables users to “double or triple the performance of the integrated graphics processor when plugged into a wall socket or extend their battery life by over an hour while on the go.” In actuality, it’s a variant of ATI Hybrid Graphics Technology for lappies, giving folks the option to switch between a Mobility Radeon HD 3400 series GPU and an integrated AMD M780G without the need for a reboot. If your eyebrows just perked up, you can snag said tech on select Fujitsu-Siemens machines right now. All the gory details are linked below — enjoy!

Read – ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3800 gets official
Read – ATI PowerXpress shipping on select Fujitsu-Siemens laptops

Sapphire Technologies is showing off some new 3D gear at Computex this week, with a pair of 3D monitors and a new stereoscopic graphics driver on display. The driver works with ATI graphics cards to send a polarized image to the dual-layer monitors, which displays a 3D image to viewers with special glasses. Details on the monitors are pretty sketchy, but Sappire says it’s not working with Zalman and that it’ll have something on the market in the “next couple of months.” Great — now just ditch the shades and we’ll be all good.

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1

Most of you have probably seen that Windows released Service Pack 1 for Vista not long ago, along with a release of SP3 for XP users.  I decided that it was time to finally make the leap to Vista, it’s been in the plans for a long time, especially since I used it during the Beta and really loved it!  I still waited for SP1 to come out just because back when I was using it in the Beta some companies such as Logitech still hadn’t gotten around to making any drivers for it… so I figured some maturity time was in order.

One thing that really does bother me a LOT about this purchase is that Microsoft is no longer including the copy of the 64bit Operating System with your purchase!  They dropped the price by $10 and send only the 32bit Windows Vista Operating System with your purchase, then if you want the 64bit version of Windows Vista you’ve got to go online and order it for $10.  To me this is backwards thinking on Windows part, I see the merit in it that the 32bit Vista works on any processor and the 64bit edition needs to be run on a 64bit processor… but honestly who doesn’t have a 64bit CPU now?  And if you don’t why are you trying to install Vista in the first place?!?!

I still really like the operating system none-the-less and have run into very few problems so far… actually a lot of problems I was having (such as with the newer versions of Opera) have gone away… I’m with a lot of enthusiasts who say that if you’re having problems with Vista it’s because your computer is a piece of crap and you need to throw it off a building.  Seriously Microsoft Windows Vista ran smoothly on my comp when I was doing the Beta and back then all I had was a 2.2ghz Dual Core AMD, 2 gigs of RAM, and an ATI x1600 video card… games were pretty darn slow, but really still playable, though some like Company of Heroes needed to be lowered in resolution and settings.  Now with a 2.6ghz (OCed to 2.9) Dual Core AMD, 4 gigs of RAM, and an ATI HD 3850 I’ve had absolutely no major glitches with Vista to date… of course I’ve only been running it for a few days so I’ll get back to you on what I think of ReadyBoost, and whatever else pops up as it comes up.

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3850

SAPPHIRE 100226L Radeon HD 3850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

I love how technology advances!  I’ve been holding out from an upgrade of my Saphire Radeon x1600 256MB Video Card for a while now because there’s always something better!  And boy, oh boy am I glad I did!  I kept thinking about getting an ATI x2600 series card, but never could really justify it.  When the ATI HD 3000 series of cards came out it didn’t take me more than a slight price drop to justify the purchase.  For the same as what I paid for one of my ATI Radeon x1600′s (Used to have two in crossfire, gave one to Credal a while ago though, so been running a single for some time now) I was able to get a ATI Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 with double the video RAM of my current card up from 256MB to 512MB.  Also GDDR3 instead of GDDR2 so everything about it is a HUGE improvement, for the same price!  Now when I was looking at the ATI 2600 cards they were the same price as my current card, and even a decent 165% faster in most games than my current x1600.  But since I was planning on going to Vista, it was a good idea to be on a DirectX 10 card, which is another reason for the 2600 upgrade… luckily ATI came out with the new 3000 series of cards, and the 3850 just so happens to be at the mid price range for video cards.  I was EXTREMELY happy abou this as the HD 3850 with 512MB of RAM is about 200% faster than the 2600′s and obviously MUCH more powerful than the old x1600 I had been running.  Power consumption isn’t that huge of a concern either, as it’s got the new 55 nanometer (NM) die.  It’s nice to finally be able to play all of my games at full resolution (1680×1050) with some sort of anti-aliasing, and antistropic filtering.  Plus I’m ready for Vista as soon as it gets here!