I make my living here at AMD as a social media strategist. For those of you who don’t know what that means (which is probably everyone) I am basically a web guy in marketing clothes. My day-to-day work involves a lot of multitasking:

• Communication –  Outlook, Communicator, GTalk, TweetDeck, Facebook
• Web development  –  SFTP, Dreamweaver, Photoshop
• Publishing  –  WordPress, YouTube, Flikr
• Measurement & analysis – Radian6,  Excel, Calculator (don’t laugh, I’m a nerd)

The result: carpal tunnel from a lot of ALT+TAB and wasted time waiting for apps to load. It’s easy to see then why a guy like me would really need a three-monitor desktop experience.

The truth is there are several of us out there who need this kind of multitasking flexibility. My social media brethren know all too well what I am talking about here. Notebook computing is great on the go but its limitation is and probably always will be screen real-estate. For people who just need email and web, that is fine solution. Once you go beyond those basic tasks your computing experience tends to suffer. Hence the need for a desktop or workstation to do the heavy lifting.

The traditional barrier to multi-monitor nirvana has been price. I recognize many of you in the small, medium or single-proprietor business are on limited budgets and additional IT tools are a “nice to have” at best. As a result, a multi-monitor workstation that goes into the many thousands of dollars is simply not an option. We have made do with two monitors where possible, or like I did until yesterday, just put up with whatever our laptop could deliver on a 13” to 17” screen.

Enter my new desktop, powered by an AMD Phenom™ II X4 945 processor and an ATI Radeon™ HD 5750 graphics card. Now what would this harbinger-of-enhanced-productivity set you back in the real world if you bought it today?

• Processor: AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0Ghz – $152.99
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-790FXTA-UD5 – $184.99
• Memory: CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 – $109.99
• Eyefinity Graphics Card: XFX HD-575X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 – $139.99
• Hard Drive: HITACHI Deskstar HD31000 IDK/7K (0S00163) 1TB 7200 RPM - $79.99
• Case: Antec VSK-2000 Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case – $39.99

Desktop subtotal: $707.94*

Attached to this beast I have 3 Dell P2310H 23” Widescreen (1920×1080) LCDs which are currently going for $249 each on Dell.com. That’s a monitor subtotal of $747.*

How much did it cost AMD to outfit me with a desktop that supports ATI Eyefinity technology?

$1454.94* plus taxes, shipping, etc.

I could have saved some dollars by going with a different motherboard but this is basically the price point you are looking at for a system like this. Let’s see you hit that price point with your fancy-pants, fruit-stamped, single-monitor  workstation!

But I don’t want a new desktop! I just want the ability to use multiple monitors simultaneously. How much would it cost me to UPGRADE my current system to support ATI Eyefinity technology?

The important thing to remember about ATI Eyefinity is that it is a graphics-based technology.  Sound obvious but it’s worth noting. Essentially all the hardware you need to get your current desktop graphics to where mine is today is as follows:

• 1 ATI Radeon™ HD 5750 card that supports ATI Eyefinity technology
• 2 or more monitors (assuming you have one DVI monitor already)
• At least one monitor needs to support a DisplayPort connection or have the dongle converting DVI to DisplayPort

Based on that criteria and the pricing info I used above, your cost to upgrade your system to support an ATI Eyefinity display setup is:

$639.99* plus taxes, shipping, etc.

Now we are talking. You probably spend that much on caramel macchiatos per year!

You have me interested, but what will I do with all of that screen real estate??

So let’s put aside the price and go back to the reasons why you should want or even demand ATI Eyefinity for your job. Let me paint you a picture of this multi-tasking utopia on my desk. Now, pretend you are me for a minute (frightening, yes?).

Imagine…a desk.

All of a sudden, three monitors appear lined up in front of you in portrait orientation.  After you turn each one on to start working, you see all of the information you need laid out in front of you on one, large 3240×1920 desktop.

Your Task: Write a blog post about how ATI Eyefinity technology is used in the workplace. Here is what you might see:

Left-most monitor:

• Top half: Google Chrome with tabs open for Facebook, news articles and webmail
• Bottom half: Internet Explorer with tabs open researching prices for all of the components in this desktop

Center Monitor:

• Top half: MS Word 2010 where you are authoring this blog post
• Bottom half: Google Chrome with tabs open for posting this blog in WordPress when it’s finished, and YouTube where you are reviewing comments on our latest videos

Right-most Monitor:

• Fullscreen: You have TweetDeck open where you are checking in on your network in real-time, monitoring the competition’s tweets and looking for which party you should attend at SXSWi next weekend.

Without ALT+TABing or closing a single app you researched, wrote and published this blog post – all while being a single click from email and other tasks – and you didn’t miss a tweet in the process.

Impressive, no?

Note to Slackers:

This thing also owns in 3D games and plays back HD video like a dream. Something I personally would never, ever, ever do while at work. Ever. [wink]

Am I insane to have a job that requires this much multitasking? Probably. Are you insane to try and do this job without ATI Eyefinity technology? Absolutely.

Slow down there cowboy! I’m not a social media nutcase like you. Why should I care about ATI Eyefinity technology?

A sane question from a sane person to be sure. Well there is more to this story than just using it for communication & networking. In fact, there are about as many ways to make ATI Eyefinity work for you as there are ways to set up 3, 4, 5 or even 6 monitors to our graphics cards. Here are a few examples off the top of my head:

• Stock trader
• Video editor
• Web developer
• Graphic designer
• [insert your job here]

Over the next few weeks, I will seek out real-world ATI Eyefinity users and ask them how they use their multi-monitor systems at work.  You get to sit back and just take it all in. Are you excited yet?

Until next time, how would YOU use ATI Eyefinity technology at work? Leave me a comment. I dare you to multitask more than me!

*Note about the prices. They were taken from newegg.com and dell.com on Friday, February 26^th, 2010 and may not reflect the component prices available in your area.

Chris James is the Social Media Strategist for AMD’s Global Communications team. 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 Recovery Act of 2009 includes a number of measures to increase energy efficiency in the U.S., which many feel is the fastest and cheapest way to address the nation’s energy challenges – from homes to factories and offices. And while the government spends billions to build a better, bigger and smarter electric grid, there are a number of ways that companies and organizations can increase their energy efficiency in the short-term. Let’s consider the commercial airline industry for a moment.

 When killing time at the airport before your flight, have you ever pondered the number of arrival and departure screens you’ve passed between the check-in counter, security and your flight gate? McCarron International Airport in Las Vegas, ranked 14th in the world for passenger traffic in 2007, with nearly 48 million passengers, boasts more than 750 flight information monitors.

Typically, flight information displays are powered by a computer equipped with a video card or a graphics card, which enables the system to power multiple monitors at once.  Both the card and the computer consume energy and emit heat, as wells the display, and contribute to the airports carbon footprint.  And in the heat of the summer in Las Vegas, all of these systems and the millions of passengers require the airport to crank up the AC.

So, theoretically at least, how can these airports save money and increase energy efficiency? Because older computers and graphics cards draw more power and emit more heat, buying smaller more energy efficient PCs and more powerful and energy efficient graphics cards will help reduce energy and cooling costs and reduce carbon emissions.  The new ATI FirePro™ 2450 multi-view graphics card from AMD can power up to four monitors at one time, fits in newer and smaller form factor computers and only sips a cool 18 watts of power – the same amount of electricity as a CFC light bulb.

According to Wikipedia, as of June 2008, there were 49,024 airports in the world with the U.S. having more than any other country – more than 14,000. While not all of these airports are of the caliber of Las Vegas, Denver or Dallas/Fort Worth, each state has at least one large commercial airport. If McCarron alone has 750 displays, the number of displays in this country’s airports alone is mind-boggling.  You have to wonder just how much energy is wasted each day.

The commercial airline industry is just one example of how multiple display technology touches your life. What about:

·         911 emergency data centers

·         Trading floors of the stock and commodity exchanges – most analysts and traders have 2 to 4 displays on their desk

·         Manufacturing assembly lines

·         Power plants

·         The electrical grid

·         Television stations

The next time you are waiting for your flight, I encourage you to consider how much energy could be conserved if a fraction of airports, factories and businesses in the U.S. and the world at large implemented more energy efficient technologies. A little effort would definitely go a long way. 

 Her postings are her 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.

Janet Matsuda is Senior Director, Professional Graphics at AMD.