Why I'm Becoming More of a Spiderman: AMD's New Phenom Quad Core CPUs

AMD has announced that it’s launching four new Phenom Quad-core CPU’s. In an effort to increase scalability, the CPU giant has offered up more AMD Phenom x4 9000 Quad-Core Processors: the 9550 (2.2GHz), 9650 (2.3GHz), 9750 (2.4)GHz, and finally the 9850 (2.5GHz).

So now you can get the Spider platform—a Phenom CPU + 790 series chipset + an ATI HD 3800 series graphics card—in a rainbow of different flavors. For all you AMD/ATI enthusiasts, this should be good news. Increased scalability = an increase in price range. And with the Spider platform, you can add up to four 3800 series graphics cards. That means that your system is highly upgradeable over a long period of time. Quad-core technology matched with quad cards—I don’t think our brain is even able to process the graphics that kind of rig can offer.

Yeah, it might be overkill but there’s still a market for PC extremists like that. The genius in AMD’s new release is that the increased scalability of their product line allows for a wider price range. Which then attracts a wide range of consumers—from PC extremists to hardcore gamers to multimedia enthusiasts to middle of the road consumers. And the idea of an “Enthusiast Platform” AKA the Spider Platform, is an extremely unique twist in how to market to consumers. AMD isn’t offering parts. It’s offering it’s consumers an entire system. And that’s how the company is trying to differentiate itself from Intel. Not to mention the fact that AMD is the first to create a triple-core processor.

Of course, Intel is still resolutely killing AMD. Still, these new innovations from AMD impresses me..I thought they were down for the count. But they still keep turning out new tricks.

And in even happier news for AMD/ATI fans, ATI is cutting the price of their 3850 and 3870 graphics cards. The 3850/512 is going to crash to $145 and less, and the 3870/512 will hit markets at $159 and less. At those prices the Spider platform is looking more and more enticing to me.