AMD "Spider" platform?

The latest issue of CPU magazine had an interesting writeup about this
future "platform" from AMD. They seemed to be saying that AMD was
designing the CPU, the GPU (from ATI) and the chipset as a single
"platform."

What was very interesting was the degree that AMD was going to make it
easy to "tune" the performance of the system. They seemed to be
saying, "Let's let all the noobs get into overclocking," and thereby
expand the market.

OK, I'm not a noob, but I liked what I read. What I didn't read was a
roadmap or dates? If I wanted to build a quad-core system say in late
summer, would a motherboards, CPUs, and graphics cards all be
available? Nothing against Intel, but all else (more or less) equal,
I'll buy AMD every time.

-AH

On Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:55:10 -0800, Andrew Hamilton
<> wrote:

>The latest issue of CPU magazine had an interesting writeup about this
>future "platform" from AMD. They seemed to be saying that AMD was
>designing the CPU, the GPU (from ATI) and the chipset as a single
>"platform."
>
>What was very interesting was the degree that AMD was going to make it
>easy to "tune" the performance of the system. They seemed to be
>saying, "Let's let all the noobs get into overclocking," and thereby
>expand the market.
>
>OK, I'm not a noob, but I liked what I read. What I didn't read was a
>roadmap or dates?

Quite.

AMD has been long on words and short on action ever since they
acquired ATi. Must be something to do with that ~ $3billion debt
that they now carry.

> If I wanted to build a quad-core system say in late
>summer, would a motherboards, CPUs, and graphics cards all be
>available?

Sure. I'd wait until then before making a decision

> Nothing against Intel, but all else (more or less) equal,
>I'll buy AMD every time.
>

Unfortunately even in late Summer you might still find things even
more unequal, both AMD vs Intel and nVidia vs AMD ( er, ATi).

However, nothing like unbridled optimism to keep the bankers happy.

AMD is claiming to be back to profitability by Fall 2008. Personally,
can't see it happening with Intel on one side and nVidia on the other,
both flush with cash and prepared to squeeze hard both technically
and with competitive pricing.

The ATi acquisition was a disaster for AMD. They have already written
off $1.3 billion of ATi "goodwill" with more to come ...which in
layman's terms means they vastly overpaid for ATi and they borrowed
more than $2 billion to make the purchase which cost them $5.2
billion.

John Lewis

>-AH

On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:02:16 GMT, (John Lewis)

>However, nothing like unbridled optimism to keep the bankers happy.

But that doesn't cut the mustard at Wall and Broad Streets in NY.

>
>AMD is claiming to be back to profitability by Fall 2008. Personally,
>can't see it happening with Intel on one side and nVidia on the other,
>both flush with cash and prepared to squeeze hard both technically
>and with competitive pricing.

If you think of Intel and nVidia as inexorably moving towards a clash
in the marketplace, AMD could be the big loser. When the elephants
fight, the mice get crushed.

>
>The ATi acquisition was a disaster for AMD. They have already written
>off $1.3 billion of ATi "goodwill" with more to come ...which in
>layman's terms means they vastly overpaid for ATi and they borrowed
>more than $2 billion to make the purchase which cost them $5.2
>billion.

That's a very serious miscalculation. Still, if they can pull off
Spider, I would really like that. I'm writing this note on a system
built around an A7M-266D, with dual Athlon XP chips, rigged into MP
mode. Great system, but probably a bit slow for today's software.

-AH
\
>
>John Lewis
>
>>-AH