New AMD lineup emphasises graphics

[Nick]

AMD has announced its new platform lineup with an emphasis on graphics and avoiding technical talk to make the consumer and the resellers lives easier with just four different "vision" labels to choose from.

AMD regional VP Tomo Kamiya and an AMD Vision Black Eyefinity six monitor setup.

At the entry level there is Vision that is capable of seeing HD graphics, Vision Premium for sharing videos and memories, Vision Ultimate for the creation of stunning videos and Vision Black, for cutting edge immersive 3D gaming graphics.

Speaking to journalists in Bangkok, Tomo Kamiya, Regional Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, AMD South Asia, shared his own experiences at the pace of change.

Kamiya himself got married five years ago, and he remembers that practically every video camcorder then was still tape. Today, his one-year-old baby has digital videos created and uploaded by his wife to be shared with his grandparents in Japan every day.

Video is the new frontier. Every minute, 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube, 1.2 million videos are being viewed at any one time and over 100 million minutes of video calls are being made each day.

"The point is the way people are using PCs have changed drastically over the last five years. It used to be how fast you could open Excel. Now it's becoming a lot more visual. Larger screens, iPads, slates 3G, Blu-Ray are all adding to the visual experience," he said.

The problem is that unlike gigahertz for CPUs, it is very difficult for the end user to choose what is right for them hence the Vision moniker.

"You will not see component logos on our platforms any more. No more Turion, Athlon or Sempron," he said.

In 2009, AMD launched its thin and light notebook platform with the HP Pavilion DV2. It was a big year for AMD with the transition to 45 nm, outsourcing all its production to Global Foundries and transforming itself into a pure IP (intellectual property) and marketing company.

Last but not least was the settlement of the antitrust lawsuit with Intel which now gives AMD a more fair and competitive environment to work with end users.

"We are a totally different company compared to last year," he said.

This year, AMD has tripled the number of notebooks it offers in the Thai market and it has a launched a 4-core CPU at a 25-watt power envelope which should prove very popular in Thailand which has a sweet spot of a 14" mainstream notebook.

2010 also sees the third generation of its ultra-thin notebook platform. The difference between netbook and notebook, Kamiya stresses, is that AMD offers HD video capable ultra-thin notebooks.

Chukkrit Watcharasaksilp, Thailand Country Manager, said that Fusion will soon be launched, merging the CPU with the GPU (graphics) for a hybrid APU (Accelerated Processing Unit). One of the core benefits will be power consumption.

He noted that AMD is the only company which plays in the top two in both the CPU and GPU markets.

Today AMD has CPUs with 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 cores and the Radeon 5000 series is the first to ship supporting DirectX 11.

This year, AMD Thailand has signed up more partners, adding Lenovo, Toshiba and Samsung to its mainstream Acer, HP and Asus partners.

Chukkrit said that AMD will become much more visible to the consumer this year, for instance, sponsoring Asiasoft for its national online gaming competition events which will hold regional followed by the final at the Mall Bangkapi later this year. It will continue its focus on key upcountry markets too.

Meanwhile, the launch showed off AMD's Eyefinity setup with an impressive six-monitor setup with six thin-rimmed Samsung LCD displays running off a single graphics card at 5480x2010 pixels. Staff noted this is an inexpensive alternative to a 50-inch display. Elsewhere, huge 24 monitor set-ups have been demonstrated running off 4 cards. Twenty games today support Eyefinity, with 40 more expected by the year's end.

About the author


Writer: Don Sambandaraksa
Position: Database Reporter


ที่มา: bangkokpost.com