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Blog
Monday, November 19, 2007
AMD releases Spider, Intel gets the bug spray
Nov 19 2007 4:29PM | Permalink |Comments (4) |
AMD today released its Spider platform, consisting of the AMD’s quad-core Phenom, ATI Radeon HD 3800 series graphics processors, AMD 7-Series chipsets and AMD OverDrive software, just a week after Intel released its 45-nm Penryn.
There’s no need to go into the timing there or to dispel of the blatant hype AMD published in its press release (terms like “delivering the ultimate visual experience across all the screens of your life” were tossed about). What is worth noting is that the platform, which came after a nine-month delay, succeeds AMD’s K8 line, will act as the cornerstone for AMD’s 2008 lineup, is inexpensive compared to the competition, and incorporates AMD’s ATI acquisition.
Still, day one reviews of the platform aren’t exactly impressive. Although AMD has stated that today’s release won’t be the very high-end model, reviewers are looking for speeds that the platform isn’t offering, topping out at 2.3 GHz. Spider won’t make Intel shriek and jump up on a chair; I doubt the dominant market player will do anything more but try to snuff out Spider’s press with its own releases – today pushing its higher-priced QX9770 at 3.2 GHz – a form of MPU bug spray, if you will. But this might start some pricing competition, always a plus for the user.
Share your thoughts on Spider below.
--Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News
Reader Comments
at 11/19/2007 10:30:48 PM, Scunnerous said:
I have to say it worries me that this the 3rd time that AMD has been bitten with a SOI geometry shrink: IIRC the first was with the Athlon XP Barton when they had to abandon 130nm SOI and pony up $49m to IBM to sort things out just in time for the first Opterons six months or so later. The 2nd time was with the Athlon64 Winchester where they couldn''t get above 2.2GHz and it took another six months or so and "dual stress liner" to get to 2.6GHz.
Now, here we are again with the SOI shrink to 65nm and would ya believe?.... 2.2GHz. SOI is acknowledged to be "difficult" even by IBM but it seems like three strikes is enough.
Oh on the subject of "hype" I have to wonder why AMD is singled out for this pejorative
at 11/19/2007 10:36:11 PM, Scunnerous said:
Hmm, this edit box is not working right with Firefox...
...why AMD is singled out for this pejorative; compared with Intel, AMD is a rank amateur at hype. Don't forget Santa Rosa, a minor chipset upgrade which had analysts everywhere drooling all over us for VERY little of substance. As for all the people rushing out to demand VIIV and VPro... uhh, where exactly?
at 11/20/2007 10:34:52 AM, JustAThought said:
I guess it feels funny when a small mouth guy, like AMD, try to talk big. It seems okay/expected for a big mouth guy, like Intel, to talk big ...... ;) That said, Intel also has more money to solve the fab issue than anyone else in the industry. Working with IBM is a dual-edge sword. You may get a discount on the technology what that comes at the cost of losing control on your product delivery. IBM tends to prioritize their own stuff. Look at company X.
at 12/15/2007 9:23:29 PM, JJL said:
It was quite easy to see what was coming ... first the launch speeds drop, then it leaks that AMD is not shpping review kits to the press, rather hosting a benchmarking party in a swank hotel at Lake Tahoe with AMD preconfigured systems, then the bulk of the press was on the platform and graphics card and the CPU was given second chair fiddle.
In short, it stinks... the immutable conclusion(to barrow from Hexus.net) is that AMD's fastest quad core CPU (bugged as it is) is slower than Intel's slowest quad core (some native advantage there).
More concerning is the deceptive methodology AMD used to hide the lackluster performance... Launch 2.2, 2.3 Ghz bugged processors with a preformance crippling patch, yet let the press bench and report results on unpatched higher clocked processors... this is not inappropriate, it is UNETHICAL.
Some poor slop is going to look at the data and say, hey it's ony slower than an Intel low end quad by 10-15%, then buys a 'patched MB' slaps it together and finds it is really 20-25% slower, or worse on some apps.
What stinker AMD pulled together... they should be ashamed.
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