cM :: MORLEY|DIGITAL

A Phenom II X4 processor without a model number?  TWKR? 42? What does it all mean? The answer to life, the universe, and everything? Well, AMD culled these parts from their Phenom II X4 line that are supposed to overclock beyond the capabilities of the Phenom II X4 955.  They hand delivered these parts to us and we’re going to put them through the ringer.  Will they come out the other side as something truly special?  Should Dirk Meyer sign these before we put them in a system?  We’ll let you know as soon as we put them through our brutal Redline validation process…

Pics and more here!

Just heard from a custom a/v rep firm earlier this week that Fuze Media, developer of a Vista Media Center wrapper, has closed its doors.  Launched in August of 2007, Fuze introduced a custom Vista Media Center wrapper whose claim to fame was multi-zone audio with granular control.

Just a few weeks ago, they sent letters to customers stating they were no longer in operation and any tech support would be handled by an independent contractor previously associated with the company - at a premium.  Their toll-free number has been disconnected.

Fuze’s business model highlights the problems a technology company has in trying to address the custom A/V market.

1)  They spent their money and resources on developing a wrapper for Vista Media Center that only slightly expanded on its capabilities.  Media Center and the underlying hardware, when introduced into a home theater environment with its own issues of ethernet networking, HDMI, and RF is tough enough to manage on its own without adding an additional layer of proprietary software complexity.

2)  It’s an over-featured product that addresses a VERY small market - its main feature was granular control over multi-room audio, with the ability to individually control individual rooms from one screen.  Second zone audio functionality built into today’s A/V receivers coupled with volume control nobs and a wireless remote will deliver similar functionality for much less - and that’s just one option.

3)  They relied on a CableCARD partner for manufacturing their box whose priorities were divergent from their own.  Fuze was not a Microsoft OEM that was authorized to build their own CableCARD enabled media servers.

4)  They flat out did not understand the custom A/V installation business and the ecosystem of dealers, retailers, installers, and customers who do not have the same technology foundation that e-tailers of these systems do.  In fact, their Texas rep, before they dropped Fuze, used to call me to trouble shoot his CableCARD issues.  Fuze’s decision late last year to license its software to PC companies (only one picked it up - the manufacturer of their boxes) effectively KILLED their dealer network as dealers could no longer make any money on the hardware when people could buy direct.

All in all, Fuze’s model proves that the most important thing about the media center business has nothing to do with bells and whistles but rather policies and procedures.  Vista Media Center, out of the box, provides 95% of the functionality a high-end A/V customer could ever dream of wanting.  Properly training your dealers to sell, and more importantly, not OVERSELL the product by setting expectations and properly training installers on a totally new platform is what makes a product successful in this market.

Until PC companies understand this, they will continue to fail, or be relegated to selling a PC on the internet to technologists and computer geeks.

Nearly a year and a half ago I wrote about the unique triple-core processor from AMD.  I felt, and still do, that it’s a great play by AMD to flank Intel’s dual-core and quad-core processors.  My focus in that article was the retail mentality of your average consumer.  Three is better than two.  That’s what a brick-and-mortar buyer will see.

And now that AMD has released its new 45nm Phenom II line-up, the press has responded much more favorably this round to AMD.  But what has received the most attention and acclaim have been the value X4 810 and the X3 parts.  Because of their low cost, overclockability, and excellent performance against Intel’s Core 2 lineup, AMD has once again found a way to position itself against its larger, cash-laden competitor.  And what may be considered AMD’s finest processor is the surprising Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition.

Recently I wrote about Intel’s Core i7.  It simply rocks.  But it simply doesn’t sell.  According to Q1 reports, the X58 chipset - the only chipset that can run the i7, will be 1.8% of its chipset sales.  Let’s give Intel some benefit of the doubt and assume that in the range of 50% of those chipset are mobile, where there is no i7, and the X58 would make up less than 4% of desktop chipset sales.  That’s well within the 5% enthusiast market I continue to talk about. (read these two posts, they’re important to understand my mindset here)

AMD knows this, and so does Intel.  The fight’s between Phenom II and Core 2 until Intel decides to drop an anvil and make Core i7 mainstream.  By all accounts that won’t be until Q4 of this year or Q1 of next year.  Intel’s best selling chipsets are those used by Core 2 processors.

Till then AMD has a very, very competitive product that combines high frequency, performance out-flanking dual-core processors, a great price, and even a bone thrown to the enthusiast with its overclockability.

Combined with AMD’s strong 780G and 790GX chipsets and fantastic Radeon HD 4000 series lineup, AMD finally has the right mix of product to make a stand in this market.  

One company I haven’t mentioned in this mix but should - NVIDIA.  Remember they make chipsets that are readily available, have design wins, and are extremly powerful for both AMD Phenom and Intel Core 2 processors.  They may be having a spat with Intel over Core i7 licensing, but for now it’s not going to hurt them in the pocket book.

[Disclosure:  I run a Core 2 Quad Q9550 in my main rig.  I currently have a GeForce GTX 280 and a Radeon HD 4870 X2 I play with.  I have two laptops with Intel chips and chipsets and one with an AMD processor with NVIDIA chipset.  My media center has an AMD processor with an AMD chipset.  I am a technologist that just loves tech and am brand-agnostic.  I think all these companies make great products that sometimes you just have to use in an manner fitting to their price and performance.  My opinions are my own and do not necessarily represent those of SolidWavePC or Fluid Digital.]

When chip developers, be it Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA, design new technology, they tend to stratify the product in a way that will appeal to various markets.

They do this several ways.  They can speed-bin the parts and cull the fastest performers and market them under a premium label, or they can go the other way and take lesser performing parts and market them to the mainstream.  Everyone, in fact, does both.  Either way they are able to get the most out of their research and development dollars pumped into the product while delivering value to the consumer.

Focusing on the graphics card market for a moment, take a look at AMD/ATI and NVIDIA’s products.  They feature various amounts of stream processors operating at varying frequencies.  These processors are paired up with different types of memory configured in varying capacities and bandwidth.

Now, there seems to be accusations (mostly by fanboys in forums - but also by snide remarks from tech press) levied against NVIDIA right now that they are somehow being dishonest in what is being called a “rebranding” of their G92 chip.  This chip formed the basis of the 8800GT and the 9800 series solutions.  It’s a powerful chip that delivers great performance.  It was derived from the G80 chip, the original 8800 GTX, which was the reigning speed king for 18 months.  Since then NVIDIA has been able to shrink the chip, increase clock speeds, reconfigure the types of memory it works with, and even remove stream processors to create products that are priced to meet market needs and compete with AMD/ATI.  The whole time making more peformance available to more people at better price points.

Now that NVIDIA has had a whole new architecture available to them for several months now, the GT200, NVIDIA needs to be able to do the same thing - stratify.  The 65nm GT200 is used in the GTX 260 and 280.  The 55nm GT200b are utilized in the GTX 285 and 295.  These are high end components that serve a small market niche and are large, power hungry, and expensive.  They’re also silly fast.  

One thing to keep in mind at this point is that the GT200 does not introduce any new feature sets.  Compared to the GeForce 9-series, it “merely” features more stream processors and memory bandwidth.  It’s not a DirectX 11 part.  It’s just pure muscle based on the same architecture dating back to the G80.  And that’s not a bad thing in the least.  AMD does the same thing.  The very successful Radeon HD 4800 series are built upon the same basic philosophy as the not-so-successful Radeon HD 2900.  They just tweaked it, shrunk it, dded stream processors, and repositioned it.

So NVIDIA has to make the choice on how to “fill down” their product stack.  Given their GTX 200 naming convention, the obvious choices would be something like the GTS 250 or the GTS 240, which is what the tech press is reporting.  Given that the current GTX 260 has 216 stream processors and the GTX 285 has 240, how would you design the value parts that NVIDIA needs to compete in the mainstream if you were in their product group?

Well, let’s start by subtracting stream processors and some memory bandwidth.  128 stream processors is pretty hefty, wouldn’t you think?  I mean, that’s as many as the recently released HP Firebird has.  And that machine is getting a lot of attention!  And let’s chop that memory bandwidth up - boy those 512-bit traces make for an expensive PCB.  Let’s go 256-bit.  OK…next step.  Do we take our large, expensive GT 200 chip and disable stream processors or…wait a moment, don’t we have a chip that already meets this feature set?

Yeah, it’s the G92.  Which, btw, will get a nice performance boost as well.

It’s good for the consumers.  They now have a product lineup that will make sense from top to bottom, both pricing and performance.  There is nothing nefarious about what NVIDIA is doing.  They are pricing and positioning these new products against their GT200-based bretheren.  And the G92 nips at the heals of the GTX 260, so it’s a smart chip to start with.  Consumers win.

It’s good for the channel.  This economy sucks.  But we still need to move new product.  These parts are new.  They make it easier for us to talk to the customer about value vs performance.  Boutiques, system builders, retailers, e-tailers, and distys win.

It’s good for NVIDIA and their shareholders.  NVIDIA is able to continue to make money on a product that they originally designed over 2 years ago.  Their architecture has legs and as long as they can continue to deliver value to the customer and bring in profits, it will only help them be a stronger company.  And that’s a good thing for everyone because:

It’s good for competition.  Do you think that AMD stands idly by and lets NVIDIA make these movements in a vacuum?  No, they change their pricing and products accordingly.  Who knows, maybe it’ll spark a new mid-range GPU throwdown.  

And who doesn’t like a good cage fight?

Music industry executives are right now packaging up new pop acts with a keen focus on downloadable-content for music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero.  Songs cost twice as much to download, and piracy is impossible.  It’s the RIAA’s digital dream…so for the next year listen to those top 40 pop/rock hits that are manufactured by big record companies and think about how they would play out in Rock Band and Guitar Hero.  Think about the complexity of the guitars, bass, drums, and vocals.  I think you’ll agree with me.