Last week AMD invited CrunchGear down to Austin to check out an overclocking event they were holding, at which many, many liters of liquid nitrogen and the much colder liquid helium would be consumed by thirsty processors.
They asked us, however, not to video the entire event, since they’d have their official video coming out shortly and some of the technology being used was still in development. No problem, we said, we’ll just dip our pulled-pork tacos in the spare liquid nitrogen. → Read More
<img src="http://old.crunchgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/header.jpg" class="center" I'm eating lunch in the conference here in AMD's Lone Star campus while they're getting their custom cooling setup down to -250°F. Yes, -250°F, 120 degrees above absolute zero. Then they’re going to go for a couple world records while pouring liquid Helium onto the processor. It’s kind of awesome, in a really nerdy sort of way. We’ve got a gallery here and we’ll have video tonight or tomorrow; it’s actually pretty cool to watch. → Read More
AMD launched the Break Free Page: a collection of articles and quotes ramming about Intel’s bad behavior. I understand that Intel was a bad boy and revenge is sweet but making a website about it seems a little cheap. Maybe the time and effort put in slapping Intel should go to making processors. → Read More
The European Commission today announced that it has fined Intel a record €1.06 billion ($1.45 billion) for abusing its dominance in the market for computer chips to exclude its biggest (and frankly, the only serious) rival AMD by paying computer manufacturers Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and NEC as well as retailers to postpone, cancel or downright avoid using or selling the latter’s products.
That’s one hell of a fine, considering the previous record for similar abuses in the EU was ‘only’ €497 million (Microsoft, back in 2004).
The European Commission has ordered Intel to stop the exclusion practices immediately, and said it would closely and actively monitor Intel’s compliance with its decision. E.U. regulators first began investigating Intel in 2001, after AMD filed a complaint in Brussels the year before. → Read More
We recently reported of Advanced Micro Devices’s (AMD) uphill battle to challenge rival Intel’s dominance in the micro-processor market. According to the technology market research firm IDC, AMD could be catching up to Intel sooner than everyone thought. The IDC released a report today that indicated that AMD may be gaining ground in the fight to surpass Intel. In the first quarter of 2009, AMD earned 22.3% of market share, gaining 4.6% from the last quarter whereas Intel earned 77.3% of market share, losing 4.7% from the last quarter. IDC reported overall weakness in worldwide PC processor unit shipments, with shipments declining 10.9% from 4Q08 to 1Q09. Market revenue declined 11% from 4Q09 to 1Q09. Revenue declined 25.1% from 1Q08 to 1Q09. “The PC processor market continued to reflect significant decline in end demand for most of 1Q09,” said Shane Rau, director of Semiconductors: Personal Computing research at IDC. “However, some inventory replenishment by OEMs at the end of the quarter helped to slow the decline and bring the quarter in at a level only slightly worse than typical seasonal decline.” AMD has been struggling with sales in the enterprise space. In April, AMD reported significant losses in the first quarter of 2009, with as revenue falling 21% to $1.8 billion. The company lost $416 million, compared with $351 million in same quarter last year. According to Rau, AMD saw an increase in market share thanks to a pricing advantage over Intel and an increase in demand for desktops. AMD previously had five straight quarters of declining market share so things are looking up for the chip processor. Of course, Intel is still ahead in the race but perhaps AMD’s recent microprocessor offerings could also help close the gap slowly but surely. CrunchBase Information AMD Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
AMD gained 4.6 percent of the CPU market this past quarter, making it the first time in five quarters that AMD’s made up some ground against Intel. It’s now got 22.3 percent to Intel’s 77.3 percent, according to analysts at IDC. → Read More
The Phenom II X4 has been shown to be an excellent overclocker, and recently the world record was set by a group called Limit Team, who took the 3.2GHz stock processor and took it up to an insane 7127Hz. That’s an increase of just over 221%. Of course, while with good ventilation you could probably overclock yours a good 10-15% with no ill effects, this particular hack required “exotic cooling materials” in AMD’s words. Does that mean… like a piña colada? → Read More
Please join me in a celebration of one of the hardware world’s biggest movers on their 40th birthday. The last few years have been pretty rough on AMD, but they’re still rocking out and competing convincingly with their arch-rivals, Intel and NVIDIA. To celebrate their middle-age debut, they’re doing a couple contests, so if you want to win a new processor or video card, step right this way. → Read More
What’s the matter with AMD? The number two chip maker in the whole world just posted some numbers that don’t reflect too kindly on its performance over the last few months. The big, bad Sunnyvale, Calif.-based corp lost $416 million last quarter; about $195 million of that was related to a corporate spinoff (see: GlobalFoundries). When put into scary percentages, AMD’s sales fell off 21 percent. Meanwhile, Intel, what with its Core 2 Duo and, more importantly, its Atom, continues to hum along nicely, expecting sales to rise for this same quarter. So what gives, AMD? → Read More
For whatever reason this week’s launch of the beta version of AMD’s Fusion Media Explorer, the company’s first forray in the social media hub / browser space, isn’t being met with a mountain of buzz. For a 40-year old giant of a tech company that’s mostly known for its micro-processors and related technologies, that’s quite surprising, especially because the product actually appears to be quite cool, if not very innovative these days.
I say appears, because the installation failed on my computer for lack of an AMD processor (I should have known), and I should probably note the application has only been tested for use on Windows and Linux machines. From what I can gather, it most certainly makes me want to test it asap though.
Here’s how AMD pitches the browser (buzzword alert):
(after the jump) → Read More
The eternal quandary for system builders has been much less quandarious (to coin a term) for the last year or so. Intel processor, AMD video card — anything else would be uncivilized. AMD’s 48xx series has been the only choice for a while, but the latest products from AMD and NVIDIA are a little less starkly separated.
For around $250 (the mid-high sweet spot), the 4890 and GTX 275 are remarkably well-matched — more so than any two equivalently priced cards from the companies have been for some time. So which do you buy? → Read More
As much as we like the giant-killing 4870 graphics cards from AMD, they have been around for quite a while now. It’s past time when more needs to be done than tape two together and call it “X2.” Luckily, they’ve had the successor to the 4870 in the pipe for a while now, and someone’s just gotten their dirty hands on one. → Read More
If you didn’t already have enough reasons to buy a Radeon 4870 in one of its many forms, well, here’s another one. AMD’s been trying to push sales of its graphics cards, hoping to lower inventory and get a little dough, maybe to offset the enormous loss they posted this last quarter.
Their strategy was to lower the 512MB 4850 to ~$120, and its big brother the giant-killer 4870 to an incredible $150. But their partners said “no thanks,” comparing the 4870′s performance to much higher-priced NVIDIA cards. So wait, it’s too good? → Read More
SATA 3.0 is about to bring the goods – and fast. Seagate and AMD partnered together to demo just what the hopeful revision will be capable of with a prototype Barracuda drive and AMD chipset. If Seagate gets its way. – you see, not all manufacturers are signed on just yet including Western Digital – SATA 3.0 will be a full 200% faster than the current generation while still being backwards compatible. → Read More
It wasn’t so very long ago that the 4870 was the king of the hill. They offer it all the way up to 2GB right now, but 512MB should suit anybody shopping in the mid range. And $150 (with the $15 mail-in rebate) is an absolutely excellent price for this card. If I weren’t completely broke right now, I’d buy one myself. Maybe one of you guys could buy two and I’ll pay you back when I’ve got more GP? → Read More
Video card technology seems to compete with CPU technology, both of them continuing to obey Moore’s law, and becoming faster and faster with each iteration. Many manufacturers have also taken to increasing the amount of memory on their existing cards to make them run better. Most the time, this results in at least noticeably better performance, as we’ve seen. → Read More
Currently, if you want a netbook, you’re going to get an Intel atom chipset. This is just understood. They are fast, have low heat and power consumption, and are the defacto standard. But AMD is looking to get in on some of that action, and they could be a serious threat to Intel. → Read More
AMD enthusiasts should mark February 9th as a red-letter day. Five new processors have been unleashed by the ailing but effective CPU company, and they look like a serious value. If you’re looking to upgrade your box right now, these new processors are pretty much the only reasonable option.
Plus, you can upgrade now with your DDR2 setup, and then move to a new DDR3 setup in six months and keep the processor, since it’ll be compatible with both. More deets inside. → Read More
While Intel is working on taking on the GPU sector (and may just have a deal with Sony to do it), its main rival, Nvidia, is looking to get into the x86 processor business. The video hardware giant is assembling a team from scratch to make a competitor to the Intel and AMD’s CPUs — but doesn’t seem to care that the technology is proprietary and must be licensed from the very companies they’re trying to overthrow. → Read More
A little creative thinking over at the Inquirer has led them to suggest that Nvidia may get left out in the cold come the new generation of gaming consoles. Intel and AMD are set to split the spoils between them, leaving Nvidia (in its glory and its ego) to play with the PC market, which, as we are constantly being reminded, is dying. → Read More
