Analyst: AMD's Spider Launch 'Disappointing'

[Sunite]

Analyst: AMD's Spider Launch 'Disappointing'
By Richard Koman
November 20, 2007 11:45AM

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While AMD plans to release faster versions of the Phenom chips that power the new Spider platform, Spider's introduction didn't have the splash it might have had, said analyst Roger Kay, who noted that the clock frequencies of the current Phenom chips are "a little disappointing" and below what AMD hoped to bring to market.

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   AMD on Monday announced its Spider platform, which consists of the Phenom quad-core chip, the ATI Radeon HD 3800 graphics processor, and the AMD 7-Series chipset. But at least one analyst said he was was not impressed.

Spider is the "first real instance of the marriage" between AMD and ATI, the graphics chipmaker it acquired last year for roughly $5 billion, Roger Kay, principal analyst with Endpoint Technologies, said in a telephone interview. "It's a step on the way toward further integration Relevant Products/Services we expect to see" between the companies, Kay said.

From AMD's perspective, the Spider platform is designed to deliver "a highly advanced, feature-rich enthusiast computing experience." With Spider, said Dirk Meyer, AMD president and COO, high-end gaming machines are "in reach for more users than ever before."

But to Kay, Monday's launch was not a slam-dunk win for AMD. "The clock frequencies are a little disappointing," Kay said. "They're below what AMD hoped to bring to market."

'Not Noticeably Better'

Along with introducing the Spider platform, AMD highlighted two Phenom chips, which are based on the Barcelona architecture and aimed at high-end gaming. The Phenom 9500 runs as 2.2 GHz, while the 9600 runs at 2.6 GHz.

In the first quarter of next year, AMD will release two chips running at faster speeds, the Phenom X4 9700, running at 2.4 GHz, and the X4 9900, clocked at 2.6 GHz. The big iron, a Phenom chip running at 3.0 GHz, is not expected until the second quarter.

While AMD "talks about higher clock rates later on, the intro didn't have the splash it might have had," Kay said. He said that testers of the new chips were reporting "comparable performance" with Intel chips. "They're not noticeably better but they're not noticeably worse than Intel. It's not a clear winner but it's not a loser."

Much Riding on Year Ahead

Kay emphasized that AMD needs "to bring out the higher frequencies sooner rather than later." AMD is a favorite of the gaming community "not only because they offer good performance, but also because they're quite flexible in terms of their architecture," he said. "They've been a favorite of the white-box community."

The gamer and modder community is inclined to support AMD, but AMD has to "deliver the goods," Kay said. Toward that end, AMD emphasized the scalability of the platform, saying it will easily scale to three or four graphics processors for a "gaming supercomputer." That scalability is built on ATI's CrossFire X technology.

Analysts are looking forward to what the marriage of ATI and AMD might produce in 2008 and especially in 2009, with the Fusion platform, in which all the basic computer components are on one chip.

"A lot rides on what happens in 2008 and on the Fusion platform in 2009," Kay said.