By now, you’ve probably heard that AMD unleashed the AMD FX family of CPUs, including the first-ever eight-core desktop processors that set a Guinness World Records® title for ‘Highest Frequency of a Computer Processor.’ While this is truly impressive, and PC enthusiasts everywhere will certainly enjoy the higher CPU speeds and experience, there’s definitely a lot more to this story for the channel than the speed of our silicon.

First, AMD FX processors do a great job of matching the wants of advanced PC user and enabling that experience on the desktop. AMD FX CPUs are optimized for a wide range of capabilities like content creation, HD media viewing, editing and transcoding, multitasking, multi-threaded gaming, enhanced productivity and AMD CrossFireX™ support. AMD FX processors also take the PC experience to the next level with advanced capabilities like HD media manipulation, overclocking, super resolution and AMD Eyefinity technology support.*

Second, despite the tough economy, PC gaming hardware continues to be a bright spot in the industry. According to Jon Peddie Research, gamers spent $16.6 billion last year on PC gaming hardware alone in 2010¹. This amount is expected to grow to $22 billion by the end of 2011. By taking a quick peek at the hot DirectX 11 gaming titles for the holiday season, the PC gaming hardware market remains very vibrant.

In addition, the desktop has evolved from a platform that once offered high-end performance at a premium cost to high-end performance at a great value. To demonstrate this point, one only needs to look back five years at the evolution of the desktop. In 2006, roughly half of the desktops were less than $700 and the other half were priced between $700-1,499². Fast forward to 2011 and now more than 75 percent of desktops are priced under $700 and only 21 percent are between $700-1499³.

And then, there is the evolved role of the desktop itself.  In my household, the desktop serves as a repository for all the music, video and games that my wife and child decide we have to collect – or that I enjoy collecting myself.  In addition to being a great platform to complete all the productivity applications that are required in managing a household (I like to think of tax accountancy as my 2^nd profession), my desktop has become my home server.  And I know I’m not alone.

Some of our channel partners are already taking advantage of these benefits; including CyberpowerPC, iBUYPOWER and NCIX just to name a few:

• CyberpowerPC is unleashing the Cyberpower Gamer Scorpius lineup of PCs to take full advantage of the AMD “Scorpius” platform, which combines the new AMD FX 8-core processor, an AMD 9-series chipset motherboard and AMD Radeon^TM HD 6000 Series graphics.
• iBUYPOWER has created a program to give customers the best indication of their system’s performance before they purchases it. So now, iBUYPOWER can recommend the best-possible settings, from Low all the way up to Max. Needless to say, they gave AMD FX 8-core processors its MAX rating in their Optimal Settings Program.
• To celebrate the long-awaited AMD FX series launch, NCIX partnered up with ASUS and Corsair in order to bring end-users the very best AMD has to offer with a top-to-bottom lineup based on 4-, 6- and 8-core AMD processors.

As you can see, there’s a lot of excitement around the new AMD FX CPUs. Personally, I’m proud AMD has delivered a CPU end-users can’t wait to get their hands on. But what I might be more excited about is the potential this product has for the channel to help grow their business and turn the World’s Fastest CPU into a “profitability machine”.

David Kenyon is the Corporate Vice President of Worldwide Channel Marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites, and references to third party trademarks, are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only.  Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

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* AMD’s product warranty does not cover damages caused by overclocking, even when overclocking is enabled via AMD  software.

¹ Source: Jon Peddie Research, Volume 11, Number 9 (May 3, 2011)

² Source: AMD Green Book (June 2011)

³ Source: AMD Green Book (June 2011)