amd

Dell has decided to stop selling most of its consumer notebooks that use Advanced Micro Device's chips on its Web site, promoting those systems instead through its new retail strategy.

There are still a handful of AMD notebooks available on Dell's site, but only one Insprion system targeted at home users. On the business side, you now have to wade through several Dell Web pages before you stumble upon an AMD-based laptop. Two are available, a Vostro and a Latitude, and both are being promoted as small-to-medium business systems.

"To ensure we deliver the best value to … Read more

Let the quad-core competition begin. The arrival of consumer systems based on AMD's quad-core Phenom processor at retail stores will finally bring much-needed four-core rivalry to the high-end PC segment, where, until January, there was only one choice: Intel. Gateway Computer's Phenom-based models had a widely publicized debut at Best Buy this week, making the Irvine, CA-based company the second major U.S. PC vendor after Hewlett-Packard (HP) to adopt the Phenom processor. Earlier in January, Wal-Mart began selling the HP Phenom-based Pavilion M8330F desktop (which, according to Wal-Mart's Web site, is now out of stock).

Gateway'… Read more

A week after it was supposed to, AMD announced its Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card today. Roughly $450 will get you this high-end 3D card, which melds two Radeon HD 3870 chips onto a single 3D card package. The resulting performance is basically the same as two standalone Radeon HD 3870 cards in AMD's multicard ATI Crossfire mode. Various review sites show it competing more or less well against Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GTX and 8800 Ultra cards, although neither AMD nor Nvidia can claim an across-the-board victory.

Our illustrious colleagues at GameSpot are working diligently on updating their benchmarks for this card after a late-breaking driver update (the reason for the cancellation of last Monday's announcement). We weren't originally going to retest, but for reasons unrelated to the driver, we decided we would. Once we have scores, both CNET and Gamespot will post our respective reviews. In the meantime, Anandtech, ExtremeTech, and PC Perspective have well-done coverage of AMD's new card. And how do those sites find the DirectX 10 performance picture?… Read more

AMD's new Radeon HD 3400 and 3600 graphics cards represent the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the 3870 X2 whose benchmark results and technical details we're not allowed to discuss until later. Where the 3870 X2 is...something else, the 3400 and the 3600 sit firmly on the budget side of the aisle.

The 3400 will feature card variants ranging from $50 to $65 or so, and the 3600's will go from $80 to $100. Neither version will deliver top-line 3D performance, but they will each give you a step up in speed over an … Read more

We saw a story on ATI's new Radeon HD 3870 X2 3D graphics card and its delayed launch on the Inquirer this morning before we got into the office. Once we got into the office we were able to confirm the situation for ourselves. The nondisclosure agreement we signed precludes us from revealing what it is we're unable to confirm, exactly. Instead, we'll simply say that the shifty date-maneuvering discussed in the Inquirer piece seems to happen more often than not with the graphics and CPU vendors and their product releases.

I'm going to buy a new desktop computer to feed my digital photography appetites, and it's time to let the wisdom of the crowds steer me in the right direction.

There are innumerable options, but there's one particular choice I'm wrestling with: is my money better spent on a PC with a dual-core processor or a quad-core chip with a lower clock frequency?

For the benefit of anybody else in my situation, I thought I'd seek expert guidance from Adobe Systems, Microsoft, Advanced Micro Devices, and Intel and publish the results, but I got conflicting … Read more

While the raw numbers from AMD's latest earnings call are as gory as we've seen from the chipmaker this year, the bigger picture is more favorable.

AMD took steps toward--but fell just short of--profitability during its fourth quarter. On a net loss basis, the number is staggering: AMD reported a loss of $1.8 billion. However, the few Barcelona shipments that did go out during the fourth quarter helped AMD fall just short of profitability after you factor out a few one-time charges.

The net loss number reflects a charge AMD was forced to take after determining that … Read more

Here we go again. This time it was New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo who ceremoniously launched an investigation into monopolistic practices by Intel.

"Our investigation is focused on determining whether Intel has improperly used monopoly power to exclude competitors or stifle innovation," Cuomo said in a statement.

The competitors in question are AMD, AMD, and of course, AMD.… Read more

The hits (not the good kind) keep coming for AMD, as the company has confirmed it is delaying the shipment of two of its new quad-core Phenom desktop processors.

An AMD representative confirmed a report from Ars Technica that the Phenom 9900 and 9600 9700 are being pushed into the second quarter, after they were originally scheduled to launch this quarter. The representative strongly denied that the delays were in any part related to the TLB errata discovered in December that is screwing up AMD's launch plans for its Barcelona server chip and Phenom, which is based on a … Read more