I Wrote a Note To AMD…

It was in response to a proposed CPU delivery.

I’m always on the lookout to tell people about faster processors. This whole green thing where we shrink die sizes to decrease pathway distances while lowering clock speeds to reduce power requirements is, in my opinion, the product of an over-estrogenized R&D department. It may work for the server guys so they can save $4.38 a day on electricity but, for most plain old guys, we want enough horsepower and clock cycles to choke on them and die with smiles on our faces.

My particular testing relies on video rendering. There’s no graphics card trickery involved or software compiler switch manipulation –it’s grunt and groan heavy lifting. Over the years that AMD and I swapped spit about CPUs, no matter how popular they were in gaming platforms, there wasn’t one AMD processor that could hold its own against a comparative Intel product in that venue. Before I’d mention that in my (then) column or a review I’d go back to AMD to find out if I’d done something wrong or could do something else to improve performance but I hadn’t and there wasn’t. I think that constantly having my finger in its eye is what probably annoyed AMD most.

Of the 7 active computers I currently run, only two have AMD product inside (the 9600 and a 6000). One of the seven is an old Intel legacy TV/video system that I really should replace with a Maui platform because it doesn’t need to do editing, just capture, but, to be honest, I’m too lazy to re-learn. (Don’t get cocky. Whoever thought up that speaker wire header arrangement for Maui should be taken out to the north 40 and summarily dismissed with prejudice.)

On the other hand, Antec has just sent me a brand new case and 850w power supply; I have two 2TB hard drives sitting in a drawer; although I had to return the 46-inch NEC monitor I still have my little 30-inch Dell LCD; I have a variety of digital tuner cards on hand; and if AMD has a Charles Atlas CPU (Athlon, Phenom, Opteron, Octomom -it doesn’t matter) that will kick Intel’s butt in video rendering I’d be more than happy to pull together the other components I’d need to system build. At almost 58 years of age, I find a certain heady exuberance in watching a video render at faster than real-time speeds –and the faster the better. (I know… Sad, isn’t it?)

I want AMD to be better than Intel. It’s not because I like you guys better (or vice versa) but, if you are, then Intel will have to become better than AMD… and so on, and so on, and so on. It’s in my best interest. And lets face it, if things aren’t better for me, why should I bother?

More than you wanted to know, betcha….

-O’B.