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AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the release of the company’s first WHQL-certified ATI Catalyst™ graphics drivers for Windows 7 Release to Manufacturing (RTM), an important milestone in the development of Microsoft’s  next generation operating system.  For ATI Radeon™ customers, the ATI Catalyst 9.7 driver is immediately available for download from game.amd.com.  Simultaneously, the ATI Catalyst 8.632 driver has been made available for ATI FirePro™ professional graphics customers.

For maximum simplicity, ATI Catalyst™ drivers are designed to deliver a single, unified driver installation for both Windows 7 and Windows Vista. When combined with the efficiency, affordability and scalability of AMD platforms, users have an unprecedented PC experience that features:

• Rock-solid stability and compatibility for AMD platforms running Windows 7
• Full support for the visually stunning desktop environment of Windows 7
• Game performance improvements in Windows 7 compared with Windows Vista in single card and multi-GPU configurations employing ATI CrossFireX™ technology
• Windows 7 support for accelerated video transcoding tasks utilizing the system CPU and GPU via ATI Stream technology
• Full Windows 7 support for ATI FirePro™ professional graphics, delivering application performance leadership

“As we approach the final release of Windows 7, possibly Microsoft’s most visually impressive operating system to date, we continue to improve upon the industry leading stability and reliability of ATI Catalyst drivers in order to consistently deliver an incredibly immersive, high performance graphics experience to our customers,” said Ben Bar-Haim, corporate vice president of software, AMD Products Group.  “Today’s release of ATI Catalyst 9.7 and ATI Catalyst 8.632 drivers does exactly that, delivering incredibly stable and reliable graphics drivers.”

“AMD continues to be an important Microsoft technology partner,” said Jon DeVaan, senior vice president, Windows Core OS Division, Microsoft Corp.  “We’ve worked closely with AMD through all of the Windows 7 milestones to ensure that Windows 7 supports the latest high-performance graphics features such as tessellation and shader model 5.0, which will deliver a stunning visual experience when running Windows 7 with AMD graphics.”