I don’t think it was a total waste of time. If you think about it from the big marketing picture, it was smart because it gave AMD a chance to punch the point home about the platform, and not one single product performing under par. The value proposition comes from a full solution with all AMD parts that costs considerably less than a comparable INTEL platform. The other parts of the value equation comes from ease of use from a unified platform customization software that gives experts to beginners varying levels of comfort level controls to get as much performance out of the platform as possible. Many mainstream users don’t want to dick around with settings. They want to push a button and go so AMD has recognized that.

Based on my limited benchmarks (had to leave early due to a poorly scheuled flight), I can definitely see where the weak points are. However, as a plaform, it performs very strongly (factoring in price too) and I think that moving forward, we will see more integrated solutions being pushed by AMD under the SPIDER moniker. Software was also a key factor here as the demos we saw with HD encoding being accelerated by the GPU were well received. This opens up a brand new market for GPU’s that assist home users that do mainly video and photos, that may otherwise shun the need for a powerful GPU.

Although, in the end, I didn’t really think it was totally necessary to fly us all out and party with us, It did give me a chance to put my fingers on the pulse of the people in the company. Everyone there had high hopes that moving forward, AMD would be in good shape. That’s something you don’t really get when a company drops a package of parts on your doorstep.

I’ll be here working my ass off before the Writer’s strike makes me unemployed

-Mike