1.6.2

News

Dec 19, 2009
Category: General
Posted by: Colin
As we mentioned before October 22, 2009, was supposed to be the game changing date for consumers, where as well as getting their hands on Windows 7 they would also be able to buy the computers needed to run it properly.

Unfortunately in spite of all the reviews on the web showing the graphics cards needed to run Windows 7 were supplied by ATI, this still wasn't been made clear to new customers caught up by the novelty of the new software. They presumably have to find out by bitter experience that the graphics support is not up to their expectations and make do with that. And perhaps while they're at it, having a repeat performance of their past experience during the Windows Vista fiasco at the same time.

On visiting our local store we find everything is as good as can be expected there given the heavy advertising campaigns of late that insist about what to ask for once you're there. So to make things perfectly clear we refer our readers to this website for more pertinent information on how to choose the best computer hardware for your new Windows 7 machine.

Although the ATI Vision solution should simplify the buying decision in an ideal world it unfortuntely is found to be lacking in practice. Simply put, the wisdom of AMD is not being translated into the intended products in the market place. When a Vision premium equipped computer for example is found to be less expensive than a Vision Basic machine then its obvious there's something wrong in the market place configured options.

Well even if the IT market can no longer turn on a dime like that, the US case against Intel is now drawing to a conclusion close to 5 years after the complaint was originally filed.

Here's a comment at the end of a review that shows how reviewers slant their reports to favour those seeking "un-biased" reporting: "Well you should, because you, along with any other reviewer out there, don't use A MAJORITY OF DESKTOP APPLICATIONS in your reviews! You all use predefined benchmarks, mostly optimized and sponsored by and for intel. What do you expect consumers to be besides completely confused??"

But in the final analysis it really depends upon what results the HPC "consumer" gets for his money (since soon all "real" PC's will be supercomputers) and here is a picture........ What a picture! 75% market share of the HPC systems in November 2009, but only 50% of the horse power. On the other hand AMD with less than 10% of the installed systems has an inordinate share of the horsepower in the HPC market, not to mention four out of the first five top HPC installations.

And here's a fun article for consumers who buy computers for their graphics performance (or lack there of). More here on "graphics resolution that goes beyond that perceptable by human  eye thanks once more to ATI's dedication to the task at hand (hint click on next a few times to get the whole story).

Also it appears Linux is making a big comeback with netbook shipments this year. And it looks as if the unexpected courtship between Microsoft and Novell has some unexpected results: "“Forward-thinking companies are realizing the benefits of an interoperability collaboration designed to address the mixed-source realities we’re facing today and will continue to face tomorrow,”  which can be found here.

CMS - 1.6.2 - Noumea
 

"In the future we believe we'll conduct business in a way to encourage consumer choice .. and agree to it?"

 

The FTC With a cash payment of $1.25B due to AMD within 30 days, one could imagine that the IT monopoly is a thing of the past. On the other hand, others might see this as only a down payment on AMD's lost profits since 2000, that being the only year it was able to announce profits of $1.25B before taxes.  Although a step in the right direction it's hardly a treble penalty as was being demanded under AMD's complaint. And here's the agreement between AMD and Intel which we found posted on AMD's website.

Still, we can only hope that the PC industry will soon become a competitive business once more where consumer choice is not solely determined by advertising budget but rather by user benefits instead. Nevertheless we checked in a couple of our local stores in Quebec City and see there's a big difference in performance between comparatively priced Windows 7 laptops if we are to believe the Windows performance index scores on each. The best performing machines score 5.9 and 5.7 respectively for machines with ATI's 4650 512 MB graphics in each and AMD and Intel processors respectively (that's right the AMD CPU powered machine runs faster - contrary to popular opinion).

Then a machine with ATI 4200 graphics scored 4.5 and three machines with Intel CPUs and and Intel R4 graphics scored 3.4 each on the Windows index. It looks pretty clear to us even on laptops where AMD is just starting to take on Intel, they are already way ahead. We also saw a MSI CR6000 machine with NVIDIA 8200M G graphics that didn't even have a score on the Windows index. We assume it's a lower score than even the Intel graphics powered machines?

Here's the significance of the Windows performance experience index which we found here. As you'll see the AMD machine mentioned above would have scored the highest score in the index to date.

The latest news on the competitive front in 2010 shows that things haven't really changed much yet.

The Federal Trade Commission still seems to be a  little worried (FTC) "that Intel's compiler deliberately cripples performance for non-Intel processors such as those made by AMD and VIA".