Back in the early nineties, there was a game that truly defined all video games that followed, do you remember? Well, for those readers who were not born yet, the game was called Wolfenstein 3D and its introduction was a defining moment.  Some believe that Wolfenstein 3D defined the FPS as we know it. I would have to completely agree! 

If you were a Doom player then you can thank Wolf 3D for blazing the trail for what was, is, and continues to be an amazing gaming franchise.  Fast forward to August 2009 and transport yourself to Dallas, Texas and you can relive those original Wolf 3D experiences with AMD at Quakecon 2009.

id Software has teamed up with Raven Studios to develop a new game called “Wolfenstein”.  In the new game you play the original character William B.J Blazkowicz who just happens to be a super metalled out member of the Office of Secret Actions (OSA).  Come on, how cool would that business card be?

Ian McNaughton
AMD
Office of Secret Actions

Will need to print some of those up for Quakecon!

The new Wolfenstein looks fantastic, I was able to score an early copy to hone my skillz in preparation for this weekend’s festivities and the game is awesome so far…

AMD will be showcasing Wolfenstein on our booth as well as in #area64. 

We will also be providing live updates via Twitter and vlogs via blogs.amd.com.

#Area64 will be exclusive access only, meaning, you can try to find it, but its hidden and being kept secret.  AMD will be showcasing what we lovingly refer to as “The Future”, if you want to see the future, follow me as well as @AMD_Unprocessed ,  @Catalystmaker, @caseygotcher and @Tweetoe for ways to get invited.

Strap in and hold on, Quakecon 2009 is about to begin!

Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing 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.

What do you get when you cross extreme engineering with extreme overclockability?

You get an AMD TWKR CPU.

**WARNING: Extreme overclocking is an activity that should be carried out only by experts, using expert tools in a safe and secure environment. Use of extreme cooling methods and materials, including but not limited to liquid nitrogen, can be extremely hazardous.  Extreme overclocking is not for everyone – AMD urges caution and disclaims all liability for any damages, of any type or character (including without limitation, system damage, loss of data or personal injury) caused as a result of or while engaged in engaging in extreme overclocking activities.

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

As they say, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! 

Matt Davis aka @dattymavis

@dattymavis and I ventured over to AMD’s “AREA 64″ with a newly minted AMD TWKR CPU to give it a testdrive under some extreme Ln2, and what ensued was pure overclocking awesomeness!

First, let me introduce to you the AMD TWKR:

AMD created a small number of limited edition AMD Phenom^TM II TWKR Black Edition processors expressly for the purpose of commemorating the record performance feats with the AMD platform technology codenamed “Dragon” and AMD Phenom^TM II processors. These processors are designed to reach the utmost performance barriers of the AMD Phenom II processor and operate beyond the specifications of typical production level processors.

Called the AMD Phenom^TM II X4 42 Black Edition TWKR processor, it is not currently for sale, and not covered by AMD’s product warranty. This processor is provided “as is” and AMD disclaims any and all liable for any damages, of any type or character (including without limitation, system damage, loss of data or personal injury), caused as a result of or in connection with the use of this processor. 

These processors demonstrate the sound engineering and superior process technology that is in each AMD Phenom II processor.

With our TWKR in hand and a solid warning from our buildings management staff, we headed across Austin to AMD’s Secret Lab – AREA 64.

The lab is fully stocked with all the hardware an overclocker could ever imagine or dream of, shopping made easy! Did I mention the 9,000 gallon Liquid Nitrogen tank outside with direct piping into the AREA 64 lab, yup, doesn’t get much better than that!

The motherboard of choice was a Gigabyte 790X.

4G of Corsair memory,

An ATI Radeon^TM HD 4870 X2 GPU.

And a TWKR CPU.

Hmmm, why is it not posting???

After 20 minutes of no posting at all, we finally realized that the DIMMS had been previously whacked and were no good… Step 1: Always make sure you have working hardware!

Once we had working hardware, we fired it up and started the “slow pour” of Ln2.

The steps we followed are detailed in this blog.

Ln2 engaged! First thermos of Ln2 got us to -120C, time for thermos #2.  The second pour brought us down to -139C!  Time for more!

The third thermos of Ln2 brought our TWKR part down to -186.6C – Ah, overclocking bliss!

At this point in time, I let @dattymavis take over as he is the obvious safer one between the two of us…

@dattymavis jokingly dons full protective gear and looks like something out of an alien movie…

Now time to see what this badboy can do!  We pushed the proc to a single core overclock of 6.42Ghz at a voltage of 1.725volts.  This was accomplished just having Windows at idle.  We will leave it up to the professional overclockers to push the proc’s with a heavy workload.

As for a 4-core OC, we achieved 6.2Ghz at 1.8 volts.  Again, this was at a temp of -182F with a light workload.

All in all, we achieved significant frequency for a couple of hacks with unlimited Ln2.

The TWKR is not currently for sale, but is designed to make a statement to the OC community: Thank you to each and every enthusiast who continues to support AMD and fights the good fight!

Ah, the sweat smell of Ln2...

If I’m lucky, I may be able to give away some of the TWKR processors via Twitter in the coming weeks.  I’m not making any promises, but follow me if you are on Twitter and you just might be lucky enough to become a proud owner of a TWKR yourself someday.

Also follow @AMDDesktop…they have some goodies for the community too!

Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing 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.

When the guys from CoolIT approached me for a quote for their Domino press release, my immediate reaction was, “Let’s get it in the lab and send me a review unit to test”…

Here at AMD we have a full scientific test lab for thermal devices. We all know that a properly built PC is a careful dance of core temp, ambient temp, chassis temp – all at idle, mid and full load. We like to test for real-world conditions, especially for those lazy Sundays when the air-conditioning breaks and your PC whizzes away stuffed in a cabinet under a desk collecting large deposits of dust.  It’s our business to make sure our products run under the most grueling and sometimes strange environments.

Our lab guys were impressed with the Domino coolers they received. It was once thought that cost effective water cooling was impossible.  Unfortunately I cannot share any of the details from those tests as they are all still very cloak and dagger (considered as internal trade secrets), but to say the least, I was impressed that they – our thermal fellows – were impressed.  Now before I would ever give a “nod” to any product, I have to use and experience it first.

My hands on time with the Domino consisted of building out a new system based on AMD “Dragon” platform technology:

• Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P Motherboard
• ATI Radeon^TM HD 4890 discrete graphics
• Corsair DDR3 Ram 8G
• AMD Phenom^TM II X4 955 3.2GHz processor
• 3x Western Digital HDD Totaling 1 Terabyte
• Corsair HX1000W PSU
• Coolermaster Cosmos 1000
• CoolIT Domino A.L.C

Domino installed in my Dragon System

The setup was surprisingly easy; I fiddled with the brackets and little bolts until I got it right. It took just as long to install a Domino cooler as it did to fully install a PSU.

Once it was fully installed, I checked for leaks, cracks, breaks and/or other signs of water in my system prior to plugging it in and firing it up!

Water flowing through your PC is absolutely foreign to many and frankly most PC users.  Why would anyone in their right mind want to have a water contraption in their PC, the answer is quite simple, superior cooling!

Water cooling has always been very expensive, labour intensive and a little dodgy at times.  Horror stories of broken piping, reservoirs cracking and water leaking that swiftly destroys your entire PC have been whispered everywhere in the enthusiast community.  A costly breakdown to say the least!

The old adage was “Cost effective water cooling is impossible”, well, until now.

The Domino made a tremendous difference in the hot air being expelled from the back of my chassis, it’s no longer “hot”, it’s simply a mild warm.  This helps in a room full of PC’s and 2 giant monitors, trust me, personal comfort becomes paramount.

Domino's operations screen

When I did a play test, I used CoD WaW and saw the Domino report a temp of 99degrees, 2079 rpm fan speed and 3123rpm pump speed on medium.

I switched it to the high setting and saw a decrease in temp, but an increase in ambient noise. The Domino reported a temp of 94degrees, 2824rpm fan speed and 3105prm pump speed.

The increase in noise levelled off to something more than bearable, but regardless, I game with headphones so the increase in ambient noise doesn’t bother me.  I really liked the “beep” feature, it audibly lets you know when something has been changed or goes wrong.

The Domino does not seem to be intended for a DIY’er who makes lots of changes to her/his PC on a regular basis.  It seems better suited for the gamer or enthusiast who builds and uses their PC in that config for awhile.  How often do you really upgrade your mobo and CPU anyway, every 6months? 9months? 12months?

As I am not a reviewer, nor do I claim to be, I almost completely rely on the reviewer community to recommend or not recommend a product, here is what they have to say:

Maximum PC gave it a 9/10 in its June issue.

PCPRO

PCWorld

TechRadar

CPU3D

OverclockersClub

FiringSquad

LegitReviews

Bit-Tech

Almost unanimously reviewed positively and recommended.

If you are a gamer looking to add “H2O” to your system, the Cool-IT Domino is a good option.

Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing 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.

Does your PC have overclock potential?  Our new AMD Phenom^TM II processors certainly do, and to showcase this I ventured over to our super secret lab buried deep inside the bowels of our Austin campus to prove the point!

Picture long hallways of unmarked doors, the hum of machinery, people milling about eyeing you up and down, wondering who you are and why you’re there.  Now imagine a dream job for an enthusiast, one where you have almost limitless access to silicon, hardware and time to hone your craft. This is the life of Pete Hardman, one of AMD’s in-house overclocking gurus!

Pete comes into work every day, passes through the “MI6″ type security barriers, enters his lab and proceeds to break records the world may never ever know about (at least that’s what he tells us)! All in a day’s work I say!

You may have seen some of the insane things we’ve done with Dragon platform technology and liquid helium, both at CES and with our friends in Finland. But for this blog we’re going to keep it simple and break down a ‘tried and true’ method for getting more performance out of your AMD Phenom II processor.

Check out his classy nameplate

Pete's work desk - a little unorthodox to say the least

Pete and I took the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor and walked it through a proper overclocking methodology using AMD OverDrive^TM software*.  Here are the steps we went through in detail:

Overclocking 101

Step 1 – Figure out your goals, small increase or one shot big gain? Power efficiency, is it important? Going for a full system max overclcok? Find the limits?

Step 2 – Procure the right hardware and software.

Our test system:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition quad-core processor

ASUS M4879T Deluxe DDR3 Motherboard 

4G Corsair DDR3 Memory

ATI Radeon^TM HD4870 X2 GPU

Thermalrite Ultra 120 Extreme “TRUE”

2 – 120mm high volume fans

Software add-ons:

AMD OverDrive software

Maxon Cinebench benchmark R10

3DMark® 05 benchmark

CPU-Z

Step 3 – Prep system – thermal paste the CPU, mount your air cooling solution as per guidelines.  Keep the thermal paste to a nice thin amount; this will be beneficial once the heatsink is applied and pressure is added.

Step 4 – Power on system and boot to the OS – Install AMD OverDrive software*

Step 5 – Change frequency; make small incremental changes to the systems multiplier.

Once you have made your frequency multiplier changes, run a benchmark like Cinebench or 3DMark® to check for stability.  Adjust frequency using stock voltage first before increasing voltage.

Step 6 – Increase multiplier and redo step 5 until the benchmark does not complete.

Step 7 – Once you have established the ‘ceiling’ in terms of frequency at stock voltage, do a cold reset/reboot.

Step 8 – Now increase voltage; this should also be done incrementally. You need to know how the voltage scales with frequency. As you increase voltage, frequency should increase, but there is a limit where too much voltage will start to reduce frequency; this is the “Sweet Spot” – find it!

Step 9 – Make a small 50mv increase, now retry the benchmark at the same frequency you previously failed at.

Step 10 – Continue to increase frequency at the new voltage until you find a fail case (meaning your computer hangs or blue screens).

Step 11 – Once you have a fail case at the new frequency, increase the voltage another 50mv and redo Step 10

Step 12 – Once you have established a threshold on voltage and frequency, we now move to the Northbridge and we make those changes via BIOS

Step 13 – Restart and enter BIOS

Step 14 – Click on CPU/NB Frequency and make an increase; we went from 2G to 2.4G which is a large jump and ended up at 2.8Ghz.

Step 15 – Continue to make incremental increases until you have a fail.

Step 16 – Take the results from steps 5, 8 and 12 and put them all together into a total system overclock. CPU cores, Voltage and North Bridge frequency all overclocked to establish a high performing PC experience

Overclocking can be a lot of fun; I personally like to do a moderate overclock and leave my system at that performance level.  Pete, on the other hand, is pushing the boundaries of silicon every day.  Chances are you are wondering what frequency we ended at, well, the results may vary, and what Pete and I achieved may not be representative of what everyone can do.  With that caveat clearly stated, our final frequency was 4.2G on air without overclocking the memory.  Not bad considering we did not spend a lot of time tweaking, we simply followed the steps above that delivered a good 1 Ghz OC.

*And remember kids, AMD’s product warranty does not cover damage caused by overclocking, even when enabled via AMD OverDrive^TM software.

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing 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.

The PC industry has many cool companies, lots of innovations and a ton of great people! One such company is Corsair, which I have worked with for many years. At their helm a very interesting, some say eccentric and down to earth personality – the one, the only, Andy Paul.

Andy Paul - CEO Corsair

Having known Andy for years, I thought it appropriate to ask him the hard memory questions that most enthusiasts never get the opportunity to ask.  Andy freely shared his wisdom, opinions, thoughts, intuitions and even a few wild predictions.

5 random Andy Paul facts:

1.   When I started my career, Intel was a leader in the memory world, microprocessors were 4 bit and the volume applications were washing machines

2.  I am from England; I have two English cars and two English dogs

3. I have a Degree in Physics from City University in London

4.  My wife, Lisa, is American and is a writer and a blogger

5.  I own a small vineyard and have been making wine for a few years

Andy in his Vineyard

Ian – Andy, first thanks for taking the time to do this for us and for the community, don’t worry I will be gentle.  Let’s kick this off by telling us the story of Corsair? How did it begin and where are you guys now?

Andy – Well Ian, this is probably before your time, but back in the early nineties, CPUs did not have onboard L2 Cache. So we started Corsair as a specialist supplier of L2 Cache modules to large OEMs. That was a great business for a while – until cache got moved onto the processor. Fortunately for us, at the same time, DRAM was transitioning from EDO to SDRAM, and we decided to jump into the DRAM market. We were one of the few suppliers in existence that understood that SDRAM required high speed circuit design and carefully controlled BOMs in order to perform well. We quickly developed a reputation for performance and stability, and we decided to build a company based on that reputation. Now Corsair is one of the most recognized brands out there for computer components, particularly among those who love performance hardware. We now sell not only memory, but power supplies and flash drives as well.

Ian – Corsair was born from humble beginnings; and speaking of memory, let’s dive into some questions from the community that I queried via Twitter and game.amd.com forums.  How do you think the transition from DDR2 to DDR3 memory is going?

Andy – It’s going quite well; this has been an easy transition for the customer. DDR3 has entered the market with no real compatibility problems or performance glitches. And, the cost of DDR3 has continued to trend downwards as expected. 4GB or even 6GB of DDR3 is now easily within the component budget for a typical system build. And we are hitting speeds of 2000 MHZ.

Recently the core i7 CPU has mainly been driving the volume of DDR3 in the enthusiast market but we expect the socket AM3 AMD Phenom™ II CPU with DDR3 to help the transition

Ian – Well, cost is always a factor in the PC industry. You mentioned that DDR3 cost is trending downward, which is great, what are the benefits and why should a gamer make the investment?

Andy – Well, as I mentioned before, cost on DDR3 really is not an issue so much any more. In fact, you can buy 6GB of premium, overclocked Corsair memory for less than $100. It’s the bargain of the century! For high performance, for ultimate bandwidth, and for compatibility with the future, you’ve got to go with DDR3.

However, DDR2 still meets the needs of most user applications.  At the moment the purchase choice isn’t really made at the RAM purchase level but at the system level.  If it’s a 65nm AMD Phenom processor or Core 2 Duo then it’s going to be configured with DDR2 motherboards and memory.  If a user goes with Core i7 or a new AMD Phenom II processor with DDR3, then he would pick a DDR3 motherboard and DDR3 memory.  The point is when you add up the cost of a high performance DDR3 system compared to a volume DDR2 solution, only a small premium will be from the memory.  So that’s not what drives the decision, it’s more about the overall system features.

Ian – I understand the bandwidth benefit but what about latency? Gamers demand lower latency and DDR2 delivers that. When will DDR3 catch up and when will it surpass DDR2 in terms of latency?

Andy – DDR3 has already passed DDR2 in terms of latency. Remember, latency is notated in clock cycles, but actually represents elapsed time. So, 1600MHz CAS-8 is actually LOWER latency (and thus, faster) than 800MHz CAS-5. Corsair’s fastest available part is 2000MHz CAS-7, which means that the latency is 3.5 nanoseconds. This is the same latency as 800MHz CAS-2.8 which of course does not exist! So, we have already seen this crossover.

Ian – As the trend towards more memory increases (I have 8G in my home system), is DDR3 better suited for denser memory? i.e. 2G or 4G memory sticks.  How do you see the memory piece of the PC puzzle working out?

Andy – DDR3 is not intrinsically higher density than DDR2. However, DDR3 is better suited for denser memory in that it is now the focus of development technology for memory. So, as fabs come up with new process geometries and new device densities, the development focus will be on DDR3, and DDR3 will be the first technology to market.

From a density standpoint, we see the sweet spot for memory being at least 6GB for three channel configurations, and at least 4GB for dual channel configurations. By the end of the year, I think many or most dual channel builds will transition to 8GB. Memory cost will continue to trend downwards, Windows 7 will be out there and applications programmers will produce applications and games that are designed to take advantage of 64-bit memory addressing.  Even now many of our customers are populating machines with 12G.

Ian -  Are there any memory trends on the horizon you think would have a cool geek factor?

Andy – Well, Corsair definitely has lots of products here and on the horizon which have serious geek appeal. And since we are the leaders here and others tend to copy what we do, I suppose the trends will follow!  Just one example of a cool enthusiast product we offer is a cooling system for memory which actually takes the memory BELOW ambient temperature. The technology is TEC based, but employs humidity and temperature sensors to keep the modules just ABOVE the dew point to avoid condensation.  Also, of course, our Dominator GT modules with racing red heat sinks and the world’s fastest performance are also very appealing to “geeks!”

Ian -  With PC ASP’s driving down to historical lows and in an extremely challenging economy, where do you see the PC industry going?

Andy – Well, Ian, being at AMD I suspect you have a better view of that than I do. My standpoint is heavily tilted towards the home system builder community. We still see a lot of activity but, combined as you might expect with some degree of fluctuation based on the economic uncertainty, as you might expect.  I would think that there will be a lot of fallout this year, especially with companies that lack premium features in their products, or companies without strong brands.

For component areas with a lot of suppliers, like memory, graphics cards, etc., I would expect to see the most casualties.  But the companies that continue to innovate and offer their customers features with good value will continue to do well.  What I do see is that with lower prices, most families now have multiple PCs; this doesn’t have to be a major family purchase anymore.  In fact the last cell phone I bought cost me more than the general purpose PC I just built, and I just put a small format 12V PC in my boat.  So I think there are plenty of opportunities for the market to continue to expand.

Of course it’s high graphics content games that really drive the performance market, and until those achieve TV level reality, I don’t think the market will slow down in terms of technological advancement.

PC Nav Station on Andy

PC under the berth

Ian – Make a wild prediction for enthusiasts and gamers?

Andy – I would expect that in 3 years from now, Corsair will be as well known for the cases and power supplies we make as for high performance memory.  Actually that’s not that wild is it? How about Intel merging with Nvidia?

Ian – Finally, is the story true about the Corsair business plan being figured out on a boat?

Andy – Yes, that is true. I used to spend almost every weekend sailing and racing boats. When a few of us got talking about starting a new company it seemed a good place to have the discussion, over a few beers I think.

That’s how the pirate name, Corsair, came into being.

Ian – Andy, thank you for your time; how can gamers and enthusiasts get more info on Corsair?

Andy – Well, at www.corsair.com, of course… as well on enthusiast forums, review sites, and blogs (like this one!), and at most computer component retailers worldwide…

Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Andy Paul is CEO and President of Corsair Memory. His opinions are his own and may not represent those of AMD.

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing 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.

Twist my arm, unreleased GPU meets, unreleased CPU meets unreleased Microsoft OS! When I was asked to build out a totally “unreleased product” PC and experience/blog on the tremendous gaming capabilities of such a system, I was all over it!

First things first, collect all the necessary components; as you can imagine this is a very easy task at AMD.

Components – CHECK

Chassis – Antec Skeleton (as this is easy to do quick uninstalls and reinstalls)

Birthplace – yes, we are human, even though we work and live in grey cubes

Lifting the veil!

Motherboard – Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P (AM3)

Memory – 8G Corsair XMS3 DHX DDR3 1333

CPU – Unreleased AMD Phenom™ II Quad Core (3.2Ghz)

GPU – ATI Radeon™ HD 4890 OC (unreleased at the time, available today)

OS – A super secret version of Windows 7

CPU is an AMD Phenom II X4 quad core running at a stock frequency of 3.2Ghz, this CPU is scheduled to be available sometime in Q2.

The GPU is a third generation DirectX10.1 graphics card that is powered by the most powerful gaming GPU under $2601.. Availability of this GPU is April 2nd worldwide (today) and I was excited to test it early!

Some of the specs to the GPU are:

Compute Power – 1.36 TFLOPS

Core Clock Speed – 900 Mhz

Memory – GDDR5

Frame Buffer – 1G

Memory Bandwidth – 124.8 GB/s

Transistors – 959 million

Stream Processors – 800

On to the gaming experience.

Home office and test area – Yes, that is Tweetdeck open, yes that is an HP dv2 on the left and yes that is an Optimun Prime helmet beside my Master Chief helmet! Me=Geek

Just for clarity, I installed a really mature version of Windows 7 as the OS to go with the ATI Catalyst™ 9.3 software driver that we just released. This excluded me from using AMD Overdrive™ for overclocking2 or Fusion Gaming Utility3 as I did not have time to fully test these apps on Win7 (rest assured we’ll get to those in other blogs). Not to mention, I really wanted to give you a sense of the coolest gaming PC build possible!!!

If you have read any of my previous posts, you will quickly come to realize that I love Call of Duty 4: World at War, Left 4 Dead and F.E.A.R.2. These were my games of choice. As you can clearly see above, I hooked them up to one of my 30” DELL monitors and cranked all the game settings to the max. It was simply beautiful, truly cinematic HD gaming.

L4D, killing zombies on a 22” screen is boring, killing zombies while rendering with an HD4890 on a 30” screen was scary!! I have never been so stressed out while gaming (minus my first time playing DOOM).

Did I mention the system was almost silent, it was cool and quiet!

F.E.A.R. 2, can’t say I’m tired of playing the first few levels of this game, especially on such a massive screen with so much horsepower!Between the CPU and GPU, F.E.A.R 2 purred along at 2560×1600 without a hitch, flicker or anomaly! It was the way the game was meant to be played! (no pun intended here)

Did I mention the system was almost silent, it was cool and quiet!

The experience of CoD4 WaW was awe-inspiring! Nothing like running into a fox hole – gun a’blazin’ (or in this case, flame thrower a’flamin’) without the distraction of load times or annoying interruptions from hitches and flickers!

Did I mention the system was almost silent, it was cool and quiet!

If you are a hard core gamer looking for the best GPU value in the market – and when I say value I do not mean cheap or thrifty, I mean hardnosed best product for the money – the ATI Radeon HD 4890 needs to be a consideration! Market leading performance, exceptional price AND actual availability on launch day! No PR gimmicks here folks, no paper launches, no “ball and cup” games, just innovative product, with industry leading features built by gamers for gamers!

Don’t take my word for it; here are some very reputable 3rd party review sites to verify my experience!

“Editor’s choice Enthusiast Gold Award”

Mark Warner, Brent Justice, HardOCP

“Bon” Award (performance 4/5, features 4/5)

“It is hardly known if the GTX 275 will be available in volume or at the price promised”

Clubic.com (France)

“It is not a completely new design, but the Radeon HD 4890 is an exciting product nonetheless. To put it simply, the Radeon HD 4890 is the fastest, single-GPU powered graphics card AMD has ever produced. And its competitive pricing and overclocking headroom should further its appeal amongst enthusiasts.”

“HotHardware Recommended Award”

Marco Chiappetta, HotHardware.com

Now, I need to get back to gaming on this beautiful piece of engineering…until next blog!

(BTW: I respond to most all comments personally, catch me here or on Twitter)

Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

1 Internal calculations show that the ATI Radeon HD 4890 delivers 1.36 TFLOPs of raw compute power. Third-party testing shows that the fastest competing GPU, the GeForce GTX 280 graphics processor, delivers 1.06 TFLOPs of raw compute power. http://www.gpureview.com/GeForce-GTX-285-card-605.html.

2 AMD product warranty does not cover damage caused by performance tuning, even when enabled using AMD software.

3 THIS UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing 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.

Have you ever wondered just how much performance you can get from your current PC? Or, how much do you need to spend on a CPU vs. GPU? Or, do large containers of Liquid Nitrogen spewing vapour make your neighbours nervous?

At AMD HQ in Austin, TX in November we invited some of the top press in the world to preview our newest DT CPU, AMD Phenom™ II processor in a “Dragon Platform Technology Techday Event”. Here are the ingredients to a fantastic overclocking event:

• Lots of Tier 1 press from all over the world -- Check
• Cool Surroundings -- Check
• Lots of hardware -- Check
• Design engineers -- Check
• Massive containers of Liquid Nitrogen -- hehe -- Check
• Food, Food, Food -- Check
• A few pairs of welding mitts and safely glasses -- Check, Check, Check

And with this you have the makings of an overclocking smorgasbord!

Patrick Moorhead (AMD Veep of cool stuff) setting the stage before we unleashed our AMD Phenom II Processor overclocked to 6+GHz

Most gamers are satisfied with their stock CPU frequency, but there is the occasion, if just for pride or ego, a gamer wants to strut their stuff and showoff the headroom of their PC. At AMD we are no different; we wanted to showcase to the WW press the massive overclockability of our new Phenom II CPU.

Some of the most interesting conversations are had when a company allows their top talent engineers to converse directly with tech journalists, no marketing, no spinning, no positioning, just honest answers to questions and some crazy idea generation let me assure you!

left to right: Sanjiv Lakenpaul (AMD Senior Platform Engineer), ME, John Bruno (AMD Engineering Roadmap Strategist), Jeremy Laird (Tech Radar), Tarinder Sandhu (Hexus)

We were discussing the demo behind me - our competitor’s 3.2G i7 processor vs. our 3.0G AMD Phenom II processor playing CRYSIS and how a balanced platform is the right choice. Just considering CPU performance in a CPU centric synthetic benchmark is no longer relevant. A gamer has to consider their chipset, CPU and GPU as a holistic platform, in a lot of cases, investing more in the GPU and a little less in the CPU will deliver a better gaming experience. (I smell a future video blog)

On with the show! But first our own Sami Makkinen addressed the safety concerns around the demo and laid out the exact configuration and what to expect (little did he know, they would even surpass his world champion overclocking expectations)

Sami Makkinen (AMD Professional Overclocker and creator of AMD Overdrive)

“Have CPU, will Overclock” was the motto of the day, and overclock they did! Sami and team started with just an air cooler and achieved a monstrous 4+GHz overclock booting and playing CRYSIS.

But that was just the beginning, “Please stand back folks…6GHz is no barrier”

...add the Liquid Nitrogen and the 6GHz barrier was smashed!

A little fine tuning by Sanjiv and team prior to the final attempt

And in the end, everyone was able to witness a stunning 6.2GHz overclock of the AMD Phenom II processor playing CRYSIS and a further 100MHz to 6.3GHz booting…Just amazing.

This event was so successful we decided to take it on the road, we asked Sami to invite two of the world’s top overclockers to the US to personally take the AMD Phenom II processor through its overclocking paces and the result was awesome.

See the whole event …well worth experiencing!

…or watch it on Mogulus

We then took it even another quantum leap forward and participated in an overclocking event in Las Vegas going HEAD TO HEAD vs. INTEL, yes, INTEL! I won’t ruin the fairytale ending, but watch this video to see AMD Phenom II Processor break records and establish itself as THE KING OF OVERCLOCKERS!! If that wasn’t enough to quench your thirst for Phenom overclocking madness, AMD traveled to Finland to break even more records.

Moral of the story: invest in your PC wisely, don’t be fooled by the “$1000 CPU hype”, in most cases a good sub $300 CPU coupled with a ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 series gfx card is all any gamer needs to achieve the best gaming experience, and when the few times to need to “drag race your friends” or “show off to the new, cute neighbourhood girl” you can use AMD Overdrive and overclock your AMD Phenom II to processor massive frequencies, all with a few clicks and a wise purchase decision.

Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing 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. ]]> http://blogs.amd.com/play/2009/02/25/hitting-the-overclocking-stratosphere-in-austin/feed/ 0 http://blogs.amd.com/play/2009/02/12/what-is-a-gamer/ http://blogs.amd.com/play/2009/02/12/what-is-a-gamer/#comments Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:46:00 +0000 Ian McNaughton /play/archive/2009/02/12/what-is-a-gamer.aspx Old adages are thrown out the window!

Remember back in the day when you frowned if/when someone called you a “gamer”, it usually had a negative connotation, like nerd or geek:

GEEK
n.
1.
a. A person regarded as a foolish, inept or clumsy.
b. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.

Today, the mighty consuming gamer has raised their hands in victory as they have shed the shackles of nerdy geekhood and emerged as triumphantly mainstream.

To be a gamer is to be cool…says I (and IDC actually*)!

IDC did some research around US gamers – 2.094 US residents aged 18 or older who play on or own atleast a DT, NB or console.

Some of the top titbits’ are:

• Roughly 66% of respondents are older than 35yrsold
  • Gamers over 35 tend to play on a PC
  • 18 – 24yr olds tend to play more console
• 70% of respondents participate in some form of social media online!!
  • Twitter, Facebook, Xfire – watch this number explode!
  • 37% read blogs
• 37% said their favourite gaming device is the PC (YEAH BABY!)
  • 29% console
• Type of games played on PC
  • 18.6% RTS
  • 18.7% Retro Arcade (Alittle Donkey Kong for the soul)
  • 25.6% FPS
  • 33.5% Action Adventure
• Type of games played on Console
  • 62.6% plays Action/Adventure
  • 50.9% Racing games
  • 45.8% FPS
  • 41.1% plays sports type games
• The top purchase decision is for Superior Graphics and/or sound
  • ATI Radeon is designed into the XBOX 360 and Nintendo Wii
• More Americans gamers play games on their PC than on a console!

What does it all mean?

• It means PC Gaming is alive and flourishing and that our generation of gamer, the ones who started it all (that would be people like you and me) who cut our teeth on Pacman, Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, Space Invaders and Frogger are STILL gamers and geeks to boot!
• It means women are crucial to the health of gaming and are driving it to greater numbers! Rock on ladies!
• It means that Gamers are early adopters and social media mavens.
• It means console gaming is cool, but for the kids….

*IDC The American Gamer: 2008 Survey Results

My name is Ian McNaughton and I AM A GAMER!

Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing 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.

• AMD Phenom™ II X3 720 Black Edition (2.8GHz)
• Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H (AMD 790GX-based mobo)
• ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 (single card without ATI CrossFireX™ technology enabled)
• 4G Corsair Memory DDR2
• 150G WD HDD
• Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit

The test system

WEI and 3DMark System Specs

After the install and boot up was complete, I did what ALL gamers should do (on a monthly basis) and updated my ATI Catalyst^TM GPU software drivers… The idea of triple core was a novel approach for CPUs, normally, or better, historically we (the industry) went from 1…2…4… etc, always in multiples of 2x. AMD broke this trend as we had the world’s first native quad-core processor for desktop PCs which allowed us to offer the market a triple-core processor. The significance of this is that now consumers had more choice, OEMs and the channel had more differentiation and AMD offered a product that its competitor could not replicate. But I digress, moving on to gameplay. The FarCry 2 play test:

DELL 30" monitor displaying FC2

I loaded a fresh copy of FarCy 2 and proceeded to crank the settings: 2560×1600, AA 4x, DirectX10 (would have elected DirectX10.1 if available) all other settings were on High or Ultra High. The load time was quick; the game play was smooth, no hitches, no visible issues, a solid great experience. The GPU did not have ATI CrossfireX^TM technology enabled as I wanted to play the game with the equivalent of a performance mainstream card such as the ATI Radeon HD 4870. The picture above does not do the experience justice but it looked beautiful, 30 inches of monitor in all its splendor powered by a $145 CPU, unbelievable. But, it’s not a magic trick; I played a few more games to make sure this experience was not an anomaly.

Crysis - Advanced settings on HIGH, 1600x1200 AA 4x - picture taken right before I died

The AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition was a champ, the game experiences were awesome, and why is that you ask? The answer is quite simple, the system I built was a balanced system, I invested more in graphics, which allowed me to have the ultimate gaming experience while not having to invest in a $1000 CPU. Oh, did I mention that these processors are DDR3 AND DDR2 capable, meaning you can use them in your existing AM2+ socket motherboard as an upgrade OR in our new AM3 DDR3 socket motherboards. One of the things I give AMD huge credit for is their continued support of past generation infrastructure, this means cheaper alternatives for consumers and gives YOU the gamer the choice when you want to upgrade.

Enemy Territory-Quake Wars, All settings on HIGH, Shader Lvl Ultra and AA 8x

The old school belief was that to get the best PC experience, one must invest as much as possible in the CPU; this is now a myth, tales of long ago, fallacy, make believe! Don’t believe the Blue hype in the market, you can have a brilliant multi-core gaming experience with overclockability for less than $145. This little triple-core processor is proof of that!¹ The GPU and the chipset have become vital decisions when building a PC, the old adage of “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link” holds true in PCs today. I was thoroughly impressed with this product, especially when you take into account its price point, its headroom and the market leading chipsets it gets slotted into. Harness a system like this with the AMD Fusion for Gaming utility² and the AMD OverDrive software and you have the makings of a fantastic mainstream gaming system. Check out these 3^rd party reviews to see for yourself: Bjorn 3D: “Phenom 2 X4 940 BE, X4 810 & X3 720 BE

”

• AWARD:  “Seal of Approval”

HardOCP: “Phenom II Gets Affordable with DDR3 & AM3 ”

• AWARD: “Editors Choice Gold Award”

Firing Squad: AMD’s AM3 CPUs: Phenom II X4 810 and Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Hot Hardware: AMD Phenom II X4 810 and X3 720 BE Processors Also check out this video and these photos.

¹AMD warranty does not cover damage caused by overclocking, even when using AMD OverDrive™ software.

² THIS UTILITY MAY DISABLE SECURITY / ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, OR ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR SYSTEM. REVIEW ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION CAREFULLY BEFORE INSTALLING Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing 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.

I think best way to start my new AMD blog is to introduce myself beyond my brief bio and official photo. I manage AMD’s product marketing for all of EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa). I feel that I have one of best jobs in the world. Why? Because I’m a gamer guy.

I’m a grass-roots, down-and-dirty, unashamed-to-admit-it gamer guy. I’m a card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool, tell-it-like-it-is-and-ask-no-forgiveness gamer guy. I have one of best jobs in the world because I get to have my way with the latest, fastest, and most extreme PC gaming technology ever created – every single day. The tough part is pretending to be unexcited by it all while working around normal folks.

At home, it’s different. Surroundings recede to darkness, and vision stretches to the vanishing point of a pixel. The moment dissolves through 64-bit quantum foam, and my awareness teleports to an AA-rendered reality. I create worlds, save worlds, and conquer them. My altered state reaches a fevered peak—then my wife calls me to dinner.

Which proves that I’m actually just a regular guy. Canadian grown, I prefer hot dogs and beer to brie and wine. However, I prefer the very best when it comes to PC gaming. My first computer was a Commodore 64, and my first game title was the highly addictive “Summer Games.” Upgrading annually since, my home PC today is a mighty AMD Phenom™ X4 9950-based AMD platform housed in a Cooler Master chassis, with a 10,000 RPM 150GB Raptor system drive, dual 500GB storage drives, and dual ATI Radeon HD™ 4870 X2 cards using ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode driving a 30” Dell 2560×1600 monitor. My current definition of sheer bliss: 4.1 megapixels of Crysis!

For the record, I am not a FPS guy. I am an avid RTS gamer (Chris Taylor is my hero and CDN buddy), with a “never-say-die” style honed in 1997 playing Total Annihilation. When all was lost and there was no chance of capturing the enemy commander, I always mowed through the enemy’s city intent on eliminating any chance for my opponent to win the game. They say your status in Valhalla depends on the size of the enemy honour guard you take along. Hey, if you’re going to go down—take as many with you as you can.

But I’m more than just an addled enthusiast. I’m also a PC gaming industry activist, and a staunch advocate for the millions of gamers who depend on AMD to help ensure the future of PC gaming. Issues of rampant piracy, buggy and busted DRM copy protection, and hardware requirements escalating beyond affordability are among many recent industry trends that do not bode well for the PC faithful. I’m committed to exploring these issues, and tackling the truly tough topics of our time.

Is PC gaming threatened by publishers planning to release PC versions of new games only after console versions have peaked in sales and popularity? Or is PC gaming endangered by the pirates who are forcing this to happen? Is WoW bigger than anyone actually realizes, and is hurting the industry because the millions of WoW gamers play nothing else? Do too many players cheat in CS and deserve to be hung (virtually, that is) if caught? Is playing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” on medium setting truly impossible on GH3? These are among the deep questions that gnaw at the soul of today’s PC gamer.

What is the best bang-for-the-buck AMD gaming solution? What is the ultimate PC gaming experience today? What do I think PC gaming will be like in five years—or a decade from now? It’s said that telling the raw truth is a crime punishable anywhere on the planet. In this blog, I will strive to deliver unfiltered, unvarnished, unhallowed candor about gaming, gear, and hot-buttered groat clusters. Join me here for ride-the-line commentary, insightful Q&A—and almost anything else that you want to discuss, curse, or compliment.

Stay tuned!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of product and platform marketing EMEA 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.