Today, during our annual Financial Analyst Day, we announced that not only has AMD been named as an International CES Innovations 2010 Design and Engineering Awards recipient for the ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card, but the product was also awarded one of the highest scores in the Computer Hardware product category, ever! This is a testament to the efforts of everyone at AMD who worked on the product, and to the vibrant community from which we derived many of the design decisions that make the ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPU so great, as David pointed out back in September.

In my mind, these trends and others signify that all of the pieces are lining up for AMD’s continued success.  Since September we’ve worked diligently to introduce our next-generation graphics products with features like DirectX 11 game support, ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, and ATI Stream technology.  With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series and ATI Radeon 5700 series, we’re thrilling our customers in the enthusiast and performance segments, and we’re on the cusp of bringing out something even better for those who crave the ultimate game experience.  For months, we’ve all heard about and had an opportunity to test drive the latest and greatest operating system from Windows 7.  Now it’s here for everyone.  Already there are two DirectX 11 games on the market receiving rave reviews, with two more slated to hit store shelves in the next month or so, and more than a dozen scheduled to arrive next year.  Now add to all of that a consumer buying appetite that, according to most, is trending upwards, mixed with the holiday buying season, and you can see why I think the chess board of the graphics industry is set up well for both AMD and consumers everywhere who stand to benefit from the great experiences AMD technology delivers.

I look forward to watching the endgame and see if I’m right in thinking we are on the cusp of something really amazing.

Matt Skynner is Vice President & General Manager, GPU Division at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Maybe you’re a filmmaker and you just shot the next blockbuster (or maybe the latest installment of your YouTube video series) and of course, you had the grand idea, the perfect storyline, dramatic acting and the killer ending. But right now, all you have is a ton of raw footage and you’re wondering “how the heck do I turn my amazing shots into something that people watching on their laptops, desktops, home theaters and movie theaters will say, ‘Wow, this is incredible! It is truly the best film/TV show/video I’ve ever watched!’ without spending tons of hours and money in the editing studio?”

Well, with Sony Vegas Pro 9 spending hours editing your artistic vision just got a whole lot easier.

At AMD, it’s no secret that our hardware(both graphics and compute) benefits from amazing software taking advantages of the features we’ve built in the processors to enhance the overall user experience. While we love tweaking and fine tuning our processors, at the end of the day – if it doesn’t do a great job running the software, then what’s the point?  That’s why we’ve been so proud to work closely with the team at Sony Creative Software to help them deliver dynamic video editing capabilities. But, this is about more than just creating great technology. It’s about the experience and the end product.

Think about the video editing process 10, 5 or even just 2 years ago. Previously, if you didn’t have the resources of a major studio, you were out of luck. Today, the barrier for entry is much lower, and with an AMD-based workstation or PC and Sony Creative Software you-the novice or professional filmmaker-has the power to create amazing video content with ease. This includes creating killer content with features like customizable real-time audio effects, HD authoring, ripple editing, tilting technology and multi-camera editing. Meaning you can create more compelling content from a variety of sources, encouraging people without a studio  backed project to create truly Oscar or buzz worthy content-fulfilling their artistic and professional visions.

But, what’s so special about the way Sony Creative Software runs on AMD-based systems? It may sound a bit geeky, but it comes down to things like multi-threading capabilities and advanced memory technology. This is something that a filmmaker may not necessarily think about, but we do specifically so that they don’t have to. When you’re editing complex video content, mixing in audio and adding special features – it’s a lot for a CPU and GPU to handle. Sony Creative Software’s Vegas Pro is one of the first non-linear editing technologies that is specifically designed for 64-bit computing environments. The power and efficiency of AMD’s multicore and ATI graphics processors really shine here – delivering the user an experience that is smooth and seamless. And, that’s exactly what they’ll need if they want to compete with the big boys like Robert Rodriguez.

Speaking of Robert, my team and I recently interviewed Robert’s art department.  You can see the video that we produced using Sony Vegas here.  In addition, I directed a movie for Dweezil Zappa, one of AMD’s artists, called “Son of Roxy & Elsewhere.”  A sneak peek montage trailer can be seen here.

Charlie is Director of Digital Media and Entertainment at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

March marks a bit of an inflection point in PC gaming.  This month sees three of world’s leading game publishers bringing DirectX 10.1 games to market – a sign that developers are increasingly recognizing the quality and performance benefits that can be gained through DirectX 10.1, something we’ve already seen with GSC Gameworld’s S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky.  Earlier this month, Ubisoft released Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. to strong reviews, and next week will see the release of EA’s BattleForge and SEGA’s Stormrise.  All three games make use of DirectX 10.1 and from our early looks, offer up either higher frames-per-second performance, better image quality or both compared to being played on DirectX 10 hardware.  Definitely check them out.

Apart from all of the new games coming out, this month also plays host to the annual Game Developer Conference, giving developers a chance to show off new previews of forthcoming games.  For AMD and a lot of other companies, Game Developer Conference, or GDC as it’s more commonly known, is a chance to tackle the pressing issues facing game makers today.  The conference takes place this week in San Francisco, and interestingly I think we’re about to see another industry inflection point, one that once-and-for-all looks to knock down proprietary hardware barriers, and focus on standards-based approaches to game development.  All game developers are looking for ways to make the most of their development resources – taking advantage of industry standards is a big part of that.  While I can’t giveaway all our news just yet, it’s safe to say that AMD will be a key contributor to that conversation this week.

As a bit of a preview, if you’ll be at GDC and you’re planning the sessions you’d like to attend, definitely make sure to get this one on your calendar for next Thursday, March 26.  Game physics once again returns to the spotlight at GDC as I’ll be joined on stage by OTOY’s Jules Urbach to explore standards-based game physics using OpenCL and ATI Stream technology, and the developer implications of server-side rendering using AMD Fusion Render Cloud.  As a bonus, AMD’s Ward Tisdale will talk about how AMD is working with developers to make games accessible and educational through our “Changing the Game” program.  Lastly, if you’re a Richard Huddy fan – and let’s face it, who isn’t? – join us at GamesBeat 2009 right around the corner on Tuesday to hear about the future of gaming hardware.  Info on the 4 p.m. session can be found here.

Between a glut of fantastic DirectX 10.1 games, and the renewed emphasis on standards-based approaches to game development, hopefully you’ll agree with me that there’s a lot more change in the air this March than just the weather.

Neal Robison is Director, ISV Relationship Management at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

If you’re a truly hardcore gamer, we know you’re gaming on a desktop. It’s where you get the ultimate gaming experience. Desktops are where customization, cooling innovation, and the latest and greatest technology all combine for one amazing immersive experience. Paired with a 30 inch display with above HD resolutions and a 7.1 speaker system, you are now speaking the sweet language of gaming.

Alienware has been leading gaming innovations for more than a decade. With all of the noise being made about our products over the years, you might be thinking that, since it’s become the norm, we’d be getting a little used to it and might slack off just a bit. You’d be dead wrong about that – especially lately.

The latest ATI Radeon™ 4800 series GPUs can be configured into the Area-51 and Area-51 ALX, which has the Alienware team even more amped up than usual (just be glad you’re not trapped in the office with us – it’s kind of like being in a room full of kids on a sugar high!). If you want, you can go check out some screen shots and benchmarks (scroll down a bit) for Age of Conan and Oblivion, both running on their highest settings.

Using dual ATI graphics cards with multiple GPUs is incredibly versatile. You might not be the kind of person who wants to run four monitors at a time, but, if you are, using dual ATI graphics cards allows you to do just that. For those of you interested in pushing your graphics to the limit, ATI CrossFireX™ technology allows you to run to ATI Radeon HD 4000 series cards co-operatively on a single monitor which will produce incredible frame rates.

The ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 are the highest grade of graphics cards available, and they’ll handle pretty much anything you can throw at them. They’ve each got 2.4 teraFLOPS of graphics horsepower, 1600 stream processors and 2 GB of GDDR5 memory. Their increased video memory delivers incredibly detailed graphics, sharp images and smooth video. If you’re really serious about experiencing all that these GPUs have to offer, you might consider getting an Alienware Area-51 ALX with a few of those ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2s inside.

Now, we know that you might spend a lot of your time gaming (fortunately my wife games with me, so I’m one off the hook there) but we choose to believe you are a very well rounded kind of person who does a lot of other important things on your computer. Using ATI multi-GPUs allows you to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously and effortlessly. That means you can get more accomplished in less time (which leaves you more time for gaming!).

Definitely look into what ATI has to offer. Read up on what others are saying about these graphics processors. We think you’ll find it all pretty interesting – especially if you love gaming as much as we do.

Marc Diana is Alienware’s Product Marketing Manager for Desktops. As the product marketing manager for the desktop segment, Marc is responsible for all marketing strategy and execution activities for desktop computers. An avid gamer and cutting-edge PC hardware fanatic, Marc joined the Alienware team in 2004. When Marc isn’t working hard on promoting Alienware’s latest-and-greatest offerings, he transforms into Aryutar, a night elf rouge on WOW’s HellScream server.

His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

In the old days, the only processor in the PC that could do floating point math was the CPU (forget about co-processors for now). Floating point is critical for more precise computations. Also, the CPU was designed to undertake general purpose math; it could be used or programmed for just about anything. At this time, 3D hardware used fixed point, not floating point math for all the 2D and 3D workload. These GPU’s were also very specifically “hard-wired” for graphics processing

Then, in 2001, with the advent of Microsoft’s DirectX 9, or more commonly know as just DX9, things started to change. DX9 started the revolution towards floating point math on the GPU. All the “shaders” or “mini-cores” on a GPU were becoming more programmable. From this point on, all modern GPU’s were capable, at least in theory, of being used for more than fixed function graphics processing.

Fast forward to 2008 and it’s all about the magnitude of these new GPU’s. With 800 parallel shading or processing units in one ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 series graphics chip, you have huge compute power. That’s up to 1.2 trillion floating point calculations per second! So, we now have one huge, general purpose compute capable GPU. In some ways it is more powerful than the most up to date quad core CPU. It is also massively parallel or “multi-core” with up to 800 of these processing units, each capable of executing at the same time.

It took some time, but AMD (thanks to its acquisition of ATI) was a forerunner in this field with research projects going back over 5 years; to see what else could be efficiently and effectively computed on this growing number of processing units. With the launch of the R520 GPU in September 2005, ATI successfully demonstrated the first applications of GPGPU compute to the world. But it is not all that easy; most software is written to execute serially, not in parallel. AMD has been working hard to ensure that the majority of today’s processes or applications can work on first dual core, now quad core and say up to 8, 16 or 32 cores (CPU cores or GPU cores) in the next few years. In fact, all the key companies in this area are working very hard with internal and external groups to find better ways to program both CPU and GPU cores in this new world of massively parallel compute opportunity.

And let’s not forget cost and accessibility from the equation. In 1996, an Intel Pentium Pro-based computer with 10,000 processors, the size of a large room, delivered 1 TeraFLOPS and consumed 500 Kilowatts of power. Today, the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 delivers 2.4 TeraFLOPS, costs less than $600 and only consumes 285 watts of power. This just makes it all so much more accessible.

So, in simple terms, over the last 10 – 15 years, as the GPU has evolved from low performance, single core, fixed point math capable to massively parallel, fully floating point math enabled with up to 64-bit precision. It is now an intensely powerful (but hugely underutilized) piece of computer kit and is sitting inside millions of PCs. It’s just begging to be used, not just when playing the latest intense 3D games, but for all the other massively parallel tasks we do each day.

But, there is one final part to the questions I posed at the beginning – why all the fuss now?

Well, as I have said, the opportunity has arrived now with performance, availability and price coming together. But there is another side too. It also comes down to competition. In my opinion, Nvidia and AMD are locked in a brutal battle for supremacy in the traditional GPU market place. The performance crown has gone back and forth between the two companies over the years. Today, ATI is seen as the leader again, with the whole range of ATI Radeon HD 4000 series GPU’s. With this kind of battle raging in the market, all potential weapons, including new uses for GPU’s are fair game to create buzz and interest. Nvidia’s strong marketing around GPGPU is probably part of this. So, that’s my thoughts on what GPGPU is and why it is legitimately important and finally why it is so talked about today.

Come back soon for more on this subject!

Paul Ayscough was Director of Advanced Marketing at AMD and an evangelist for graphics and gaming.  His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

Many of my friends live in developing countries, where the price of a high end gaming rig can be more than  3 or even 6 months average salary. There is no way they can buy such a system. But their love of games is huge. Can they enjoy the same level of graphic richness that wealthier first world players enjoy today?

I have earned more air miles in the last 5 years than most; with time spend in much of Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. I have visited over 100 LAN houses, small technology markets and shows where I love to talk to gamers. One thing is for sure, you find gamers who really love the PC gaming experience everywhere. Another thing is that many of these people cannot afford say $2000 – $4000 for a fast, “state of the art” rig. What’s to be done? Are these people doomed to be relegated to 2^nd class game play?

Well, no. I think everyone who can afford an average PC can now have a great gaming experience. I think price and technology allows fast and furious game play on a PC at a reasonable price.

Here are my 3 main reasons:

1. Resolution - Many people in developing countries are using older style and smaller resolution monitors. Using Brazil as an example, the fastest selling monitors are now LCD; finally taking over from CRT, but only recently. Most people still use and play on 15”, 17” or recently 19”monitors. Both 4:3 and 16:10 format monitors are still popular. My guess is that 1280×1024 or 1440×900 are probably the most common resolutions.

   If you take the total pixels being processed at these two most common resolutions, 1.3 million pixels each approximately and then compare with the resolutions we are pushing today in the USA, say 1920×1200 or even 2560×1600, which give 2.3 and even 4.1 million pixels, you see a huge disparity. We are designing new high end GPUs to push 2 or 3 times more pixels. Put it another way, you don’t need to pay for 3 X the capability you actually need; allowing most users the opportunity to stay with mid-priced discrete graphics cards. Yes, there is more to it than the number of pixels, but, this is probably the biggest determinant in fps (frames per second).

2. Performance for the Masses - With AMD’s new philosophy of creating smaller, more efficient graphics cores in the upper mainstream first, you have immediate access to all the latest graphics technology from the start. AMD’s best technology, state of the art graphics is now available in the mainstream first. Only later is it migrated to the extreme gamer with dual GPU cards for the high end gamers. So, all the DirectX 10.1 technology features used by the best game designers are available to hard core gamers, from day one, at prices that make a real game playing rig for little more than a lower-end PC.
3. Competition – Finally, AMD and Nvidia, the two competitors for great gaming cards compete vigorously for the gamers $$’s in the mainstream and higher end gaming card segments. This yields some incredible benefits for the consumer. For example, today, it is possible to buy significantly more gaming horsepower than was possible only 3 months ago, for the same $ spent.

So, to wrap up, my view is that gamers today, anywhere in the world, have access to really fast game playing cards that can give great frame rates at accessible prices. The days when you needed to struggle with low end chips, out dated, two or even three year old graphics technology seem to have gone. Almost anyone who can afford a new PC can now afford one that plays today’s newest games at great frame rates.

Enjoy! We have never had it so good!

Paul Ayscough is Director of Advanced Marketing at AMD and an evangelist for graphics and gaming.  His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.