ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860 graphics will be featured in the forthcoming Asus K notebook.

The new 40nm production process allows notebook manufacturers to deliver more graphics horsepower in a smaller ASIC die size, giving people access to highly capable discrete graphics ideal for smaller notebooks. This milestone marks the fifth consecutive first-to-market process transition for ATI graphics processors.

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860 and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 graphics processors feature 3D engines derived from the ATI Radeon HD 4800 desktop series architecture with support for DirectX 10.1. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860 supports GDDR5 memory technology contributing to stunning improvements in game play and performance with nearly twice the memory bandwidth of GDDR3.

Home theater enthusiasts can enjoy a portable HD experience with full 1080p HD viewing on HD-capable displays and or TVs. People can upscale to nearly twice the display resolution of HD content or watch standard definition video in near-HD quality with enhanced DVD up-scaling. The second generation AMD Unified Video Decoder (UVD) keeps the CPU free to run social media applications or virus scan while UVD helps process intensive content such as Blu-ray movies. This helps lower power consumption and reduces the need for high fan settings, enabling a quieter and cooler laptop experience.

Additional power-saving features include ATI PowerPlay, ATI PowerXpress, and ATI Switchable Graphics technologies.

Initially the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860 and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 graphics processors are available in notebooks from ASUS, with models planned for availability beginning in Q2 2009.