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AMD India, the Indian arm of the US-based semi-conductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), on Tuesday launched its “fusion” microprocessors. The fusion range of microprocessors combine central processing and graphics processing capabilities into a single system-on-a-chip.

The fusion range of processors are also dubbed as accelerated processing units (APUs).

Over 11 AMD Fusion-based systems will be launched in India in the first half of 2011 by manufacturers including, Sony, HP, Dell, and Lenovo.

Pitching for its latest processors, AMD India said: For CPUs (central processing units), today there is Intel and AMD. For graphics, there is Nvidia and AMD. AMD thus occupies the leadership spot in combining these capabilities. Adding that the conventional set-up of a CPU with a graphics card did not provide the best experience to users. The AMD APU or fusion processors on the other hand, as a combined system on a chip, was designed to enhance internet browsing, high-definition video, and games. In addition, it extends battery life as well.

As a means to distinguish different APUs; the E-series APU are targeted at laptops and desktops while the C-series are targeted netbooks and other small form devices.

The company plans to launch in May this year, the A series as well, which uses the supercomputer-like parallel processing technology of the GPU, enables 500 gigaflops of computing power. ---------

AMD Updates , Tech24Hours India

AMD launches Fusion microprocessors in India

Anil Singh Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) has begun shipping its first "Fusion" microprocessors for low-end laptops. In Fusion line-up, the company has combined a graphics processor and central processing on a single chip (Graphics and central processors are usually separate pieces inside of computers). AMD claims that combining the two on a single chip improves performance.

The First “Fusion” microprocessors that are shipped are the "Ontario" processors. Although the company declined to reveal the price of Ontario to device manufacturers; the chip will typically be used in PCs selling for between $300 and $600.

AMD, a perennial rival of Intel, world’s biggest chip maker, hopes that its Fusion line-up will help it regain ground lost to Intel.

Intel is also planning to launch a central processor with integrated graphics processing (Sandy Bridge).

The devices with Fusion chips will start showing up starting in the January 2011. ---------

AMD Updates

AMD starts shipping Ontario

Anil Singh Wednesday, November 10, 2010

At a technical forum at Taipie,

Chip maker AMD has demonstrated its Llano Accelerated Processing Unit (APU).

Llano forms a part of the firm's Fusion product line (AMD Fusion product Lineup) and is intended for laptops and 'thin' desktop machines.

Features of Llano APU and AMD claims:

1) Has a graphics core built into the CPU chip to reduce not only the number of components but also heat and manufacturing cost (Good for device manufacturers and final customers).

2) Llano chip is designed to have enough power to compete with existing low-end CPUs, with the firm running three simultaneous compute and graphic intensive workloads on the chip.

3) While running Microsoft Windows 7, the Llano chip demonstrated multitasking a) calculated the value of Pi to 32 million decimal places b) decoded video from a Blu-ray disc c) ran Microsoft's Nbody Directcompute benchmark, which came up with a figure of 30Gflops of computational power. AMD claimed that the demonstration was a preview of "Llano's raw compute power enabling new levels of experience computing that AMD aims to bring to mainstream PC users in 2011.

4) AMD claims the chip will help deliver "sleek form factors" and long battery life.

Llano is expected to appear in dual, triple and quad core configurations with thermal design power (TDP) ratings somewhere between 20W to 60W depending on the number of cores. The APUs will be fabbed with Globalfounderies' 32nm process.

Llano APUs are likely to play in the market segment currently occupied by AMD's Athlon II CPU chips.

AMD Fusion APUs will be on devices not earlier than the later half of 2011. ---------

AMD Updates

AMD Llano showcased : Part of AMD Fusion product Lineup

Anil Singh Tuesday, October 19, 2010

AMD today introduced the ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card (the latest addition to the award-winning line-up of the world’s first and only graphics products to fully support Microsoft DirectX® 11 gaming and computing, as well as new innovations such asATI Eyefinity technology).

Priced at less than USD $100,

1) the ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card enables a superior HD gaming experience in the latest DirectX® 11 titles, employs ATI Stream technology to boost performance in video playback and productivity applications; and

2) and helps enable the full Microsoft Windows® 7 experience.

Salient points:

1) The ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card delivers up to 620 GigaFLOPS of compute power and GDDR5 memory, delivering unprecedented gaming performance for under USD $100 in the latest DirectX 11 titles (such as Codemaster’s Colin McRae™: DiRT® 2™, EA Phenomic’sBattleForge™, GSC Game World’sS.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat™ and Battlefield: Bad Company™ 2 as well as DirectX® 9, DirectX® 10, DirectX® 10.1 and OpenGL titles).

In some of today’s most popular games, the ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics processor showed a more than 20 percent performance improvement over the closest competing product in its class.3

2) The latest in ATI Eyefinity technology enables up to three displays to be used with a single ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card4, delivering the most immersive gaming experience with a graphics card for under $100.

3) Accelerate with ATI Stream technology:ATI Stream technology speeds up video transcoding and improves video playback performance with applications such as Adobe Flash, and helps to deliver video enhancements that produce better visual quality with sharper, more vibrant images.

AMD till now has sold 2 million DirectX 11 graphics chip.

ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card Images:

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AMD Updates , Gaming

AMD Brings Next-Generation HD Gaming and Multimedia Features to you at less than a 100 dollars

Anil Singh Friday, January 15, 2010

By A Bisht

You will be wondering what AMD, media, OEMs and Girard Gibbs have to do with the battery life. But there's a clear connection between the four. The connection goes like this:

Some time ago, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) rejected a particular battery life measurement standard. The reason (which we think was) for doing so is the AMD's disapproval of the procedure adopted in the standard to determine the maximum battery life.

According to AMD, many laptop battery manufacturers calculate battery life based on a misleading test that is conducted by running computers at low energy levels, resulting in seemingly larger life span numbers (Tests conducted by various media outlets have revealed that many laptops last as short as 50% of their advertised time).

Although AMD has just disapproved of what it thought is not the right practice to approve, it initiated a major tiff in which the media, sensing a popular angle to the entire development, soon jumped in.

As expected the increasing media scrutiny made situation tricky for the OEMs. Owing to the enormity of the inflated claims regarding the battery life of their equipments, major OEMs find it hard to defend their claims.

But a few things still remained absent : If the OEMs are making false claims regarding the battery life of their equipments, then who will force the OEMs to mend their ways and more importantly, who will bring back the money, consumers paid for the false claims.

At this point, Girard Gibbs comes to the picture. Girard Gibbs, LLP is a law firm which specialises in securities litigation, consumer class actions and complex business litigation, and has recovered more than a billion dollars on behalf of its clients. Now, the law firm will be contesting against the major OEMs on the Battery life in the court of law, and try to force a good thing on a sector that refuses to do right.

You can help Gibbs in its crusade against the OEMs; if you have bought a laptop and are disappointed with its battery life, then Click Here to tell Gibbs about it.

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So this is how AMD, media, OEMs, Girard Gibbs and Battery Life are connected. It may be that Gibbs may be doing this at the behest of the group which will benefit from the erring of the OEMs, but still it is a good contest from the consumers' point of view; as not a single penny of a consumer's hard earned money should go funding the false claims.

Some Explanations:

OEM: OEM stands for an original equipment manufacturer. An OEM manufactures products or components which are purchased by second company and retailed under the second company's brand name.
Confusingly, OEM may also refer to a company that purchases a component made by a second company for use in its own product.

In today's write-up, the second explanation for the OEM applies. Here the OEMs refer to laptop makers like HP, Dell, IBM and the rest. ---------

AMD Updates , Battery Life

AMD, media, OEMs ,Girard Gibbs and Battery Life

Daniel Smith Wednesday, July 1, 2009

By A Bisht

AMD recently released a beta plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4(Creative Suite 4).

Function and benefit of this Plug-in: The plug-in dramatically improves the performance of a range of complex video editing(off-line editing on PCs) tasks. The plug-in is the result of an ongoing collaboration between Adobe and AMD engineers designed to take advantage of ATI Stream technology in a way that allocates processing between available system CPU and GPU(Graphics Processing Unit) resources for maximum application performance.

The Adobe Premiere Pro CS4(Creative Suite 4) plug-in draws on the computational power of both the CPU and GPU to improve the program’s performance. ATI Stream technology allows the powerful GPU to be used for more than just graphics processing, resulting in improved general computing power. This is the industry-changing power of accelerated computing ― the power of Fusion.

In the case of the Adobe Premiere plug-in, a lot of the processing is still being handled by the multi-core CPU, but what is nice here is that it now powers the user to finally unlock the ATI Stream to compute acceleration capabilities sitting on those ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics cards.

Some Explanations:

--What are plug-ins?

Plug-ins are software modules that add to the functionality of an application.So AMD's beta plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, is a software module, which adds functionality to the Adobe Premier Pro CS4, by gelling together the AMD hardware and the Adobe Application(software).

--What is ATI Stream Technology?

ATI Stream Technology or GPU(Graphics Processing Unit) Technology for Accelerated Computing is a set of advanced hardware and software technologies that enable AMD graphics processors (GPU), working together with the system’s central processor (CPU), to accelerate many applications beyond just graphics. In simple, the whole idea is not to leave any GPU resources unused. Whenever there's some unused resource it'll be used to accelerate the computing. This enables better balanced platforms capable of running demanding computing tasks(Like Video editing) faster than ever.

--What is AMD Fusion ?

AMD Fusion is an initiative or concept under which AMD collaborates with the Application makers/software makers, with an objective of giving a memorable experience to the user. The latest AMD beta plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, is a result of one such effort.

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What the new AMD beta plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 achieves on performance front ?

The results of the tests conducted at the AMD labs, give the following performance numbers:

--The latest Catalyst driver(plug-in) enhances the encoding performance up to 8 times.

More specifically, for those looking to build DVDs (or in need of MPEG2 streams) the AMD Fast MPEG2 encoder performs over 178% faster than Adobe default encoder.2 I still like H.264 for quality and compression and the AMD Fast H.264 encoder performs up to 668% faster than Adobe default encoder. ---------

AMD Updates

AMD releases beta plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro CS4

Anil Singh Thursday, June 18, 2009

By A Bisht

What will happen when PC speed freaks from 19 leading technology forums across Europe assemble at an event organised by most advanced chipmaker, AMD. The outcome is obvious: some future technology from AMD will be tested for the fastest speed possible.

In the event, AMD will attempt to push AMD platform technology, codenamed "Dragon", to the fastest speed possible and see how much dragon can endure.During the trials, the contestants will try to clock up the highest scores in categories such as 3D Mark performance, calculation speed and highest CPU clock speed.The trials will be taking place during the entire next month.The event has a competing format, where contestants from the 19 forums will compete for the glory in each category.

The first of these events was held in London on Thursday 23rd April 2009. In these two events, Dragon endured the following extremes:

--Contestant, Clive Webster from Custom PC won the 3D Mark05 competition with a score of 24,689.

--Contestant, Tim Smally & Rich Swinburne from Bit-Tech won the CPU clock frequency competition with a speed of 4,211MHz.

Tech24Hours, will be following this event closely. ---------

AMD Updates

Dragon's endurance run ...

Anil Singh Wednesday, May 27, 2009

By Mani Raj

The European Commission imposed a record fine against Intel Corp of $1.45 billion (1.06 billion euros) for abusing its dominant position in the global x86 microprocessor market, violating anti-trust rules and other practices used to keep out rival and competitor AMD from the computer chip market.

The European Commission's decision requires Intel to change its business practices immediately. Its decision also stated specifically that:-

* "Intel gave wholly or partially hidden rebates to computer manufacturers on condition that they bought all, or almost all, their x86 CPUs from Intel".

* "Intel made payments to major retailer Media Saturn Holding from October 2002 to December 2007 on condition that it exclusively sold Intel-based PCs in all countries in which Media Saturn Holding is active."

* Intel "interfered directly in the relations between computer manufacturers and AMD. Intel awarded computer manufacturers payments - unrelated to any particular purchases from Intel - on condition that these computer manufacturers postponed or cancelled the launch of specific AMD-based products."

* Intel has so far failed to convince any antitrust enforcement agency that its business practices are lawful and pro-consumer.

In 2008, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) issued a 26 billion won fine (approximately $25.4 million USD) saying that Intel's abuse of its dominant position included coercing and paying customers millions of dollars on the condition that they use only Intel chips, delay launches of AMD products, and/or not develop any new products with AMD chips.

The KFTC also found that, "South Korean consumers had to buy PCs at higher prices as domestic PC makers were forced to buy Intel's pricier CPU." In addition to a fine, the KFTC ordered Intel to stop the practice of offering payments to PC makers conditioned upon them not doing business with AMD. Intel is in the process of appealing the ruling.

In 2005, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) ruled that Intel had violated the country's anti-monopoly laws by illegally forcing full or partial exclusivity with five Japanese PC makers. Intel did not appeal the ruling.

In the United States, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and New York Attorney General's office are investigating Intel for abuse of its monopoly position. In 2005, AMD filed private litigation in the US District Court of Delaware, which is scheduled for trial in spring 2010.

Intel President and CEO, Paul Otellini said the company plans to appeal against the EC's decision at Europe's Court of First Instance.

This EU antitrust fine is the largest charged on an individual company since an 896-million euro penalty last year against glass maker Saint-Gobain for price fixing. Also a 497-million euro fine in 2004 on Microsoft for the abuse of market dominance.

The Commission stated that Intel must pay the fine within three months of the date of the notification of the decision. This fine accounts for 4.15% of Intel's 2008 turnover. ---------

AMD Updates

EU Fines Intel A Record $1.45 Billion & Orders To Change Business Practices

Anil Singh Wednesday, May 13, 2009

By A Bisht

According to IDC estimates, for the first quarter of 2009, while AMD or Advanced Micro Devices gained the market share in the volume of chip shipments; its chief rival Intel has lost some.

Market share of AMD in processor shipments in Q1 2009: ________22.3 percent

Market share of AMD in processor shipments in Q4 2008: ________21.3 percent

Gain compared with Q4 2008(QoQ)________________ 4.6 percent

Market share of Intel in processor shipments in Q1 2009: ________77.3 percent

Market share of Intel in processor shipments in Q4 2008: ________81.1 percent

Loss compared with Q4 2008(QoQ)________________ 4.7 percent

Sequentially, AMD chip shipments increased 13 percent while Intel's shipments declined 16 percent. ---------

AMD Updates

AMD gains while Intel loses

Anil Singh Tuesday, May 12, 2009

By Mani Raj

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today launched the ATI Radeon™ HD 4770 graphics processor. Its a groundbreaking product that harnesses the state-of-the-art 40 nanometer manufacturing process for the desktop PC market.

It delivers best-in-class performance and energy efficiency, at anticipated launch prices as low as $100. The ATI Radeon HD 4770 graphics card is the newest addition to the award-winning ATI Radeon HD 4000 series.

Some of the outstanding features of the ATI Radeon™ HD 4770 graphics processor are :-

* The new card features third-generation hardware support for the latest DirectX® 10.1 games like Battleforge, HAWX, S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky and Stormrise, delivering higher game performance and improved visual quality when compared to DirectX® 10.

* The ATI Radeon HD 4770 continues the AMD tradition of bringing industry-leading technology to market that drives a superior user experience. The ATI Radeon HD 4770 makes use of the latest GDDR5 memory technology, providing incredibly high data rates for fast game performance.

* Gamers looking to get the most value out of their graphics hardware investment can scale their performance using ATI CrossFireX™ technology, allowing a second ATI Radeon HD 4770 card to be added for a near-linear increase in performance.

* The ATI Radeon HD 4770 graphics card allows users to enjoy HD digital content with incredible visual fidelity. The new card helps enhance the definition and clarity of lower resolution media. Through the second generation AMD Unified Video Decoder (UVD 2.0) technology, users can be assured of smooth video playback, crisp images, and vibrant colors on all HD content including Blu-ray discs. With support for HDMI, picture-in-picture (PiP) and the latest HD audio technologies like 7.1 surround sound. The new graphics card enables an impressive cinema-quality home entertainment experience.

* Celebrating the company’s 40th Anniversary, AMD continues its heritage of focusing on the design and development of new products and platforms that deliver compelling user experiences at an exceptional value. By combining new AMD Athlon™ X2 7850 processors, AMD 7-Series chipsets and ATI Radeon™ HD 4770 series graphics cards, AMD enables a PC platform that can bring HD video to life while delivering massive performance headroom and video processing acceleration.

Consumers' careful shopping behavior in this economic slowdown is shifting demand to lower priced PCs. AMD has responded to this demand by targeting the market with the launch of PCs ranging $100 and above.

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AMD Updates

AMD Launches the ATI Radeon™ HD 4770, World’s First Desktop Graphics Card Utilizing Industry-Leading 40nm Process Technology

Daniel Smith Thursday, April 30, 2009

By Mani Raj and A Bisht

Cartoon by A Bisht

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a leading graphics processor provider and second-largest supplier of microprocessors, and FXLabs Studios Pvt. Ltd., India's leading end-to-end game development company, today announced a strategic technology alliance to foster game development in the country.

This association makes FXLabs the first Indian game development company to team up with AMD to deliver a compelling gaming experience. As part of the alliance, AMD will deploy its latest ATI FirePro™ series of workstation graphics technology for the development of upcoming games. It will provide a test base consisting of AMD Radeon™ series of consumer graphics processors. In addition, AMD will also provide the technical expertise of its graphics engineers.

[ In the Pic From left to right - Sashi Reddi FXLabs Founder & CEO,Ramkumar Subramani,sales and marketing vice president, AMD India and Janet Matsuda,Senior Director of Professional Graphics.]

In June of 2008, AMD accomplished a milestone achievement in ultra-realistic and interactive visual computing through the processing power of its teraflops graphics chip. This demonstration AMD termed as, "Bollywood 2.0 experience".

The Bollywood 2.0 demo showed the fusion of dynamic real-time interactivity with convincing cinematic digital effects that appear to be real places and things captured on video. This AMD advancement in processing technology can now begin combining with the artistic passion of top movie directors, visual effects companies and game developers worldwide to open the door for unprecedentedly engaging entertainment experiences.

Gaming consumers in India have begun to demand content that is near life-like and flawless. AMD is in the right position to provide the technology that drives this content with its platform combination of processor and graphics. In addition, through the technology alliance with FXLabs AMD expects to break the next frontier in gaming.

Besides the gaming consumers, graphics content developers also demand superior performance and speed that does not hinder their creativity. AMD’s ATI FirePro series of graphics technology enables developers to create and innovate, rather than for them having to wait for their computers to catch up. This in the end, provides The Ultimate Visual Experience™ to consumers.

Some info about the two partnering companies:-

About AMD

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and technology partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

About FXLabs:-

FXLabs is the leading end-to-end game company in India. Founded in September 2004, FXLabs began its operations building PC based games both for the Indian market as well as the global market. In December 2007, FXLabs acquired an online game portal to expand its operations into the online casual game space. The vision of the company is to be the top developer and publisher of games for all platforms including PC, console, online casual, MMOG, and handheld. FXLabs is the first Indian company to release a game worldwide. Recently Ghajini The Game was released globally. The upcoming title “NetherWorld Beyond Time I Stand” is ready for release in the US region. The current pipeline of PC titles under development include a game based on Archie Comics, a game based on Bollywood property Dhoom and a game called Bollywood Badass. FXLabs has its production studio in Hyderabad, India and a sales presence in New York and Los Angeles. For more information, visit www.fxlabs.com. ---------

AMD Updates

AMD and FXLabs partner to erase sensory barrier between Cinema and Games

Anil Singh Tuesday, April 28, 2009

By A Bisht and Mani Raj

Questions make things easy to understand:-

Q. What is Dragon?

Ans. AMD's Award-Winning PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY is codenamed "Dragon.

______________________________________________________________

Q. What is special about AMD Phenom™ II 955 Black Edition processor?

Ans. It’s company’s fastest processor ever.

______________________________________________________________

Q. What does this processor offers to its users ?

Ans. --Runs at a frequency of 3.2 GHz.
         --Gives performance users massive headroom
        -- Stunning HD visuals
        --Backwards compatibility and DDR3 support
        -- At very affordable prices, the competition will find hard to beat.
        --Also gives users the choice to upgrade whenever the time is right for them.
        --Upgrades can be done without having to purchase multiple new components.

______________________________________________________________

Q. What are the finer details?

Ans. AMD announced a platform refresh today for Dragon platform technology, including the new AMD Phenom™ II X4 955 Black Edition processor. With this platform refresh, AMD is combining its fastest processor with its most powerful GPU to deliver high definition video entertainment. Its providing "beyond HD" resolutions which allow gamers to take the latest games to the extreme.

______________________________________________________________

Q. Who should get this processor ?

Ans. Its AMD's fastest ever quad-core processor that brings all the capabilities - gamers, enthusiasts and do-it-yourselfers, have expected from AMD. Hence they can add it to their shopping cart.

______________________________________________________________

Q. What will they get from AMD Phenom™ II X4 955 Black Edition processor?

Ans. --world record setting performance.
        --High-speed DDR3 memory support
        --AMD OverDrive™ 3.0 technology.

______________________________________________________________

Q. How will this change the user experience?

Ans. By giving users more control over their computing experience.

______________________________________________________________

Q. What are the new features of AMD Phenom™ II X4 955 Black Edition processor?

Ans.   -- AMD Black Edition Memory Profile lets users create custom profiles which can easily overclock   known DDR3 memory which in turn can quickly and easily achieve optimum high speed DDR3 performance.
     -- AMD Smart Profiles can automatically tune its performance for certain
    applications, whether its for maximum performance or a quiet and smooth operation. The users get to   choose from a set of pre-defined application profiles or they can create their own profiles to personalize their experience.

______________________________________________________________

Q. What does The Dragon technology refresh consist of?

Ans. The Dragon technology refresh consists of the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor, AMD 7-Series chipsets and award winning ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 graphics. ---------

AMD Updates , Announcements

AMD Accelerates Award-Winning amd PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY, CODENAME "Dragon," with new AMD Phenom II™ X4 PROCESSOR: Some FAQs to help your way out

Mr Bisht Friday, April 24, 2009

By Mani Raj and A Bisht

On the occasion of Earth Day, AMD (NYSE: AMD) ushered a new era of energy efficiency by launching the 45nm Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ EE processor.

Designed for cloud computing the — New 40W ACP AMD Opteron™ EE processor is a full-featured energy miser. It offers 13% power savings in platform-level power consumption compared to previous generation.

A little elaboration:

A processor with AMD’s lowest x86 quad-core server power band, the new 45nm 40W Quad-Core ACP AMD Opteron™ EE processor is designed for very dense data center environments such as those built for cloud computing, web serving, or other highly dense environments. It offers a full suite of virtualization and power management capabilities so customers do not have to compromise on feature sets (quality and quantity) in order to deploy very low power servers.

In addition, the processor adds significant power efficiency improvements over the Quad-Core AMD Opteron HE processor within the same platform with a 13% reduction in platform-level power consumption and up to a 14% reduction in processor power when it’s idle. At the same performance level, the new EE processor delivers up to 62% improved performance-per-watt over the previous generation.

Some explanation:

--The energy efficiency of processors is measured in ssj_ops/watt, which stands for “server side Java operations per second per watt”. The more the number of operations per unit of energy consumed the better is the efficiency.

--Cloud computing is a style of computing in which resources are provided as a service over the Internet. In simple any service that one can use only when he/she accesses the internet will represent cloud computing.

Important update:

AMD also announced new, high performing processors available in the HE, standard and SE power bands, as well as support for HyperTransport™ 3 technology. A new fine-tuning feature called AMD Core Select, which enables IT managers to turn off one or more cores, helping them to fine tune their hardware for their specific operating conditions and workloads. ---------

AMD Updates , Announcements

AMD introduces Opteron EE Processor on the eve of Earth day

Anil Singh Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Cartoon by A Bisht

Day before yesterday, Intel launched Nehalem Xeon processors. At the launch Intel's Patrick Gelsinger said that, "The Intel Xeon processor 5500 series is the foundation for the next decade of innovation."

Nehalem is quite different from any of its predecessors. However, what’s amazing is that many of the ‘groundbreaking, innovative technologies’ are quite similar to technologies AMD pioneered years ago, 2003 to be precise. After nearly six years of telling customers that the AMD Opteron processor architecture was the wrong answer, Intel finally delivered 'Nehalem' - which some might call a copy of 'Opteron', at least as far as the architecture is concerned.

Memory controller integration into the silicon die is one of the many features included in the new Intel architecture and this is believed to boost the whole system performance significantly. However, this is a standard feature on all of AMD’s server products since 2003. Nehalem is also supported by a high speed internal bus known as Quick Path Interconnect. It will replace current FSB (Front Side Bus) in most of the current design. Again, the concept is quite similar to existing HyperTransport technology available in AMD products and is known as Direct Connect Architecture (DCA).

Now the rival chipmaker AMD has always said that the Direct Connect Architecture (DCA) is the one the future will ride on. And that too six years ago, in 2003. The 2003 processor of AMD, Opteron is based on the same architecture.

Products like Nehalem and technologies like Quick Path Interconnect are simply Intel’s admission that AMD was right all along about an integrated memory controller being the key to superior processor architecture.

AMD doesn’t feel at all disappointed by its rival’s delayed acceptance of the fact in public, but as the ones writing for our readers, we definitlely are.

The first reaction that we aroused, after hearing about this development is , “Has Intel suppressed the truth?” and that too for six years.

If a product based on Direct Connect Architecture (DCA) can be the face of the future in 2009, why couldn’t it be in the year 2003? There is more to it then what appears from outside.

Is it an example of a company using its propaganda machine to suppress the truth?

In some online circles Intel’s Xeon series processors are termed as the copy of AMD for many years now, but they can be brushed aside as some partial opinions, but what about the admission from the horse’s own mouth.

What about the consumers' perspective? Weren't they misinformed by Intel about Opteron? Is it ethical for big companies to take advantage of consumers' trust and manipulate them?

What if the same tactics are used for the products meant to serve regular consumers, who like big businesses, don't have the resources to research their product choices ?

In an industry where the product capabilities double in just eighteen months, not accepting something for six years is tantamount to a scandal and a big disservice to the consumer.

[We would like to know our readers' opinions on this matter. Please leave your comments and thoughts expressing your point of view.]

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AMD Updates , Analysis

Has Intel suppressed the truth ? : After thoughts on Nehalem launch

Anil Singh Thursday, April 2, 2009

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