AMd pushes out Spider platform
Advanced Micro Devices on Monday is expected to launch the ‘Spider’ platform, which combines the company’s next-generation quad-core processors, graphics cards and chipsets in one platform to deliver better graphics, performance-per-watt and improved high-definition video. Targeted at gamers and multimedia enthusiasts, desktop PCs with the Spider platform include the quad-core Phenom processors and can hold multiple ATI graphics cards to give users the “ultimate visual experience,” according to AMD. The quad-core Phenom processor, also expected to be launched on Monday, will provide the processing power to the platform, and will be initially available in speeds of 2.2GHz and 2.3GHz (priced at $251 and $283). Processor speeds will crank up to 2.4GHz to 2.6GHz in the first quarter of 2008.
PCs based on the Spider platform will ship with the ATI Radeon HD 3850 and ATI Radeon HD 3870 graphics cards. The graphics cards support Microsoft’s DirectX 10.1 specification that enhances overall image quality on PCs. DirectX is the primary interface responsible for rendering multimedia, including game images and video, on Microsoft platforms. It also renders better high-definition video with support for UVD (Unified Video Decoder), which results in better HD DVD and Blu-ray images. Spider will support CrossfireX technology, which allows up to four graphics cards to work together to enhance graphics performance in a system. That allows scalability in graphics performance and saves users from investing in graphics chips in the future. Is this finally a move all AMD fans were waiting for? I hope so, they really need to step up to catch the Intel…
Source: Cnet, Pc world
Comments(51)
Hmm, sounds pretty freakin’ awesome. Now I’m just waiting for Intels next move…
4 cores….4 video cards….what a truely modern age we live in…WOOT!!
Oh yes. Finally us po’ folks can play games.
This pleases me.
what a load of crap. And people buy that from them..
Operating Systems, Games and Most softwarte cant even utilize the power of a Dual Core in most cases, let alone Quad.
Dual SLI is the same, you have to consider you might get problems with your games using two Graphics cards. And now you are supposed to buy 4 ? You gotta be kidding me.
And Directx 10.1 is another Joke. I mean it is just an upgrade to Directx 10. NOT a reason to upgrade to a better Card unless you still run an old one.
The ONLY people who benefit from this might be video editors.
But, oh well, people will buy the crap anyway .. and then wonder why crysis still wont run 200 fps in very high detail mode …
Hear hear DekenFrost.
So true.
Whoa… seems amazing…. even though I have read the above post, I still think it is amazing!! Too bad I just started buying parts for another system…… by the time I’m done assembling it, it would probably be obsolete!!
Not to mention by the time I can afford a quad core / quad gpu system something better will be out. (probably playstation 4 at the rate I’m going
)
DekenFrost, Im working with 3d, and if you want to do 3d high-def videos (of like houses interiors in v-ray)in less than 3 years rendertime,you’ll need as much power as you can get. If you’re not wroking on that field or video editing, and still spend that money on something like that,well…
awesome, froger has been getting a little laggy lately, this should help speed it up eh guys.
But in all seriousness i still will go for intel!
did some one mention intel + nvidia?
sounds cool… but a bit out of the average mans price range wen buying altogether 
I do audio editing and there is a HUGE difference if you have 1 or 4 cores…and, you do notice a difference in games, well I did. And more and more games and software are coming out witch support multi cores and graphics card. So it’s not so bad.
AMD is gonna pull this out and the Intel’s new QX9650 is going to beat it straight away and nvidia’s ultras beat it. And then nvidia is going to bring out something better, quad sli with cheaper graphics cards.
Then AMD is down the plug hole again.
let’s not let this get into the usual fan-boy argument
i usually buy nvidia gpu, amd cpu, i buy mid range for both
high end intel always beats high end amd, high end nvidia always beats ati
BUT amd/ati are cheaper than intel/nvidia in a money/performance ratio
Well the interesting part is not who has a better processor or better video card, to me its the fact that amd/ati new “spider” platform tries to tie it all together to get better performance. which is what its all about. so what if you have the best cpu/vid card, if your platform is crap your system is crap. im not trying to tweek any nerves im just saying that its nice to see them try advancing other things than just speed.
Okay, I just wanna dampen the stupid.
“And Directx 10.1 is another Joke. I mean it is just an upgrade to Directx 10. NOT a reason to upgrade to a better Card unless you still run an old one.”
DirectX 10.1 requires any hardware certified for it, eg, the new ATI cards, to be able to do antialiasing 4x with little to NO performance hit. As in, you get 100 frames? Now it’s 96. You get 30 frames? Now it’s 28. Get it? DX10.1 hardware does 4xAA naturally. How naturally? Try, DON’T RUN WITHOUT IT, naturally.
i got a better idea!
i will wait 3 years and then i will buy this hardware like 300$ and then say;
U idiots got owned !!!
wow technology is bullspit
“That allows scalability in graphics performance and saves users from investing in graphics chips in the future.”
I call BS on this statement, since every new crop of top tier games ,i.e. crysis, bioshock, require more built in card support (shaders and t&l) and not just raw power simply doubling or quading in this case your cards will not be enough. Games and other hi end media will always push the technology to its limited and then invent new ones, so simply saying buy this and when it gets slow slap a second (identical) card in there as though it was ram does not seem plausible to me.
UTIII comes out today. I find it pretty interesting how good epic’s security is wehen only the german version is out and no us version. Though you can change the subtitles to english. So I am looking forward to seeing something here today or tomorrow.
@ comment 16
Yeah, so you buy 3 year old parts to play 3 year old games while we laugh at your old games and graphics.
This article completely ignores the fact that ATI hardware has been sh!t for years now and their driver support has been laughable for Linux until very recently. I think I’ll stick to Nvidia for my video/SLI needs and AMD for my processor needs..
@ 20 mupper00000: You fail at life. #16’s comment wasn’t too bright, but you didn’t add anything particularly intelligent to the conversation with yours.
Since I am a person that likes underdog companies and baseball, basketball etc kinds of teams I am hoping AMD can do something to kick of kick intel’s butt but with the phenom getting delayed again I am finding this more and more unlikely.
@ #21
I’ve worked with both ATI and Nvidia cards and I gotta say I actually find the ATI drivers better than the Nvidia drivers on the whole. I mean with Nvidia you have to find that magic release of drivers that work well with your card. With ATI I just get the betas or Omegas and they work very well with whatever MODERN card I install.
You all missed the point of this spider system. The point of this system is it’s compatibility feature (so the AMD says). With this system you will not be required to byu the whole new system if you want only to byu a new CPU in 2 years time.
you guys are missing the most important point…8 monitors…hit me up!
Anyone remember how badly quad Nvidia systems were? It’s only a good idea if they can make it work properly, With quad Nvidia, I remeber reading that 4 cards in many cases had worse performance than just 1. Assuming AMD gets this right, it’s gunna rock. The Geforce 7950 is still making the most of all but the latest games in maximum settings, and thats just 2 midrange, one generation old graphics cards. I imaigne it’ll be at least another generation before they really start to struggle. If the scalability is well designed and supported well, it defenetly has the potential to live up to expectations
I am a big fan of AMD from my first computer to know. I would really like to get a new system but not gonna happen. Looked over some of the info on Tomshardware.com – cool stuff, but it looks like AMD is struggling to break the 3.0GHz mark. Either way, good so far.
This is for those freaks who want the games to go 200+ FPS and that my friends is just stupid cuz. 60 FPS games are totally playable, even 30 is good for gaming but under 25 is not so good
so why waste money on stuff like this, just buy a dual core CPU a geforce 8800GTX or ultra a 4 gig Ram (x2 2GB in dual channel mode ) a 200+ GB HDD and you are good o play games until 2010 
I played Crysis with my 7800GT, my old P4 HT 3.0 GHz and 2gigs of ram and i got 35+ FPS. and you know what? it playd just fine no flickering no freezing or something like that
P.S my PC configuration costs 400$ ( who is the stupid one now )
Is this better than my Matrox G400 ??? Intel dx2/66
@OMG Exactly! I can’t afford constant upgrades with a family to raise, and lasted for 4 years on my P4 2ghz with Geforce Ti 4200 128mb! Only last year bought a Core 2 and 7900GT, and it runs Crysis fine,no probs, even on max detail, though on 1024 x 768, doesn’t bother me with higher res as monitor can’t support it anyway. The only thing I regret with my old rig was not getting a 6600GT after 2 years to keep it playing modern games totally until 2006. I’ll probably just get a 9900GT or something when it comes out next year to keep this year old rig going for another 2 years after.
Funny thing is that since 2004, the graphics of games haven’t really made such a huge difference in 3 years as between 2001 and 2004, or 1997 until 2001 for example. Apart from better lighting and shiny surfaces and sharper textures it’s not that obvious. Far Cry and Doom 3 still look very good even now.
“Funny thing is that since 2004, the graphics of games haven’t really made such a huge difference in 3 years as between 2001 and 2004, or 1997 until 2001 for example. Apart from better lighting and shiny surfaces and sharper textures it’s not that obvious.”
You’re absolutely right. Apart from a MUCH higher degree of realism, the advance is really not that obvious.
Seriously, I do hope you were kidding… lights & shadows & particles are very difficult to simulate and even though the advance in this direction may look small (i.e. not obvious), they are HUGE. Volumetric lighting & co. are great advancements.
@28
Didn’t the Pentium 4 teach you that megahurtz is not the ultimate way to measure processor performance? And if you really want 3Ghz there’s Athlon64 X2 6000+, quite cheap too, about $200. In performance it’s similar to Core 2 Duo E6600 (which costs $260 IIRC). The downside is that 6000+ is still 90nm so it doesn’t overclock well and uses significant amount of power.
It’s painful to read these threads at times.
People talking about waiting 3 years for card prices to drop yet from most of TFA around the net, you can see the 3850 is priced in around 159 and the 3870 is priced around 219 with the Dual GPU 3870 board estimated around the $350 range. So yeah, for the person waiting 3 years for it to elevate to $300 I’d say that’s going to be a while before it gets to that low of a stock level.
Then there is the claim about processor cores. Once you lump in operating systems not being able to handle dual cores you really kill credibility. Open up your task manager once in a while, observe the threads currently being processed. Then realize that this is nothing new, they’re just taking what used to be quad socket board configs and putting them into one chip so that people can get the benefit without breaking their bank account.
The 7900GT comment is great as well, Max settings playable? What manual tweaks are you dumping in? Because for me max settings means you’re doing the DX10 hack as well and if that’s the case, you’re lying to extreme extents unless the game is force rendering down like it does for old cards trying to shoot past their limits. I can run the game at 3200×1200 on and X1800XT but by no means is it playable in such a state.
Anyone looking at Phenom / Barcelona would probably be best to wait though because they’ve been working on trying to establish faster speeds for a bit, generally within the first quarter both companies (AMD/Intel) have been able to ramp up speeds from their launch line.
For those looking at a successor model to the 2900XT, the base of the 3850 and 3870 is the 2900XT architecture with a die shrink running a fraction of the original 200w+ rating. Keep in mind this an RV series chip generally reserved for mid / low end cards still. ATI has yet to release details on the full R successor that would be coming to the new series.
I look forward to the competition, the later FX platform was just absurd for them to try and push out (consumer level dual socket board using Opteron Socket F chips for gaming) although those same people have already been enjoying Barcelona quad core upgrades at the same time.
LMFAO i have a 3700+ and its only 2.2 but its rated for 3.4 LOL amd owns intel…. end of story
guess you need nuk reactor to power all that crap lol
Is this better or worse then Halo 3?
SAV it’s better..
I hope AMD get this right if not, Intel and Nvidia will own our asses we need competition.
ATI’s dual 3870 X2 gpu card looks good two of those babies in crossfire yaa. I might be able to play Crysis at 40fps lol
@36
Yeah a nuclear reactor, that’s a good one. Except the whole reduced power design of the 3850 and 3870 and the current processors using 95w TDP still.
It’s cool it seems a lot of people haven’t RTFA on the net.
As I was saying to a buddy the other day, AMD is almost too far behind now to catch up, regardless of whatever cool names they come up with for their new gen stuff. Their new cpu’s are 65nm technology, or in other words, what Intel put out 16 months ago. That is why a Core2Duo runnig 2.13ghz can smoke a fx5200/6000 any day of the week. AMD should be putting out 45nm stuff to keep up, but instead they’re choosing to go with year and a half old technology (65nm) and hope that the neat other stuff they do will draw buyers. Sorry AMD, you guys are all washed up.
my zx spectrum runs better than intell an amd put together
AMD isn’t trying to beat Intel and nVidia, but only trying to offer an alternative to their products. But their products have lower performances than Intel’s and nVidia’s products (but the they have the same performance to price ratio).
What I think is that AMD needs to lower the prices even more so it could be more competitive therefor people would buy it more.
“Operating Systems, Games and Most softwarte cant even utilize the power of a Dual Core in most cases, let alone Quad”
laugh
obviously you havent tried server2003 or… even better get server2008
I am running Server 2008 (windows 7) thing smokes, can utilize 8 duos (I only have one…) and makes any previous MacroShaft windows OS look like an commodore vic-20
Server 2k3 and 2k8 are the only real OS’s vista is a joke and xp is crap.
on the flip, linux has had multiple processor support forever (in my experience at least since RH5) so really you need to be a little more careful in your terms.
multiple processor tech was never intended for your home user moron, it was intended for server enviroments. as of 2k3 those who actually tried it out will tell you that they were easily reconfigured for gameplay and in most cases far superior to the home-user OS variant (XP)
@ 34
The max details on Crysis were on DX 9 mode, no cracks or tweaks. The cutscenes were choppy especially the first one, but the game was perfectly playable, only slowed down in really intense areas a bit.
@ 32
X, You must be joking instead, the ridiculous ‘everything is shiny’ effect on modern games like COD4 is hardly realistic. Lights don’t reflect off every wrinkle of leather like in those games, and really the ‘laser light’ effect was in use in Doom 3, and lighting on slimy things like blood and monster muscle is little changed now in a modern game like Jericho for example. Look at the latest update to the Source engine in Half Life episode two; apart from slimier looking vertigaunts, and better textures, not radically different from Half Life 2. Now compare the difference in graphics between No One Lives Forever from 2000 and Far Cry March 2004. I’d say I was totally correct that the diffence in that time period is a lot more noticeable than 2004 and now.
The simple rule I follow with PC hardware is this:
$1000 (Australian) per year, about $800-$900US
That covers top end motherboards, cpu and gpu one at a time. With that budget you can play any game on the market and some games play very well. I have lived like this for 4 or 5 years and played EVERYTHING. PC gaming rules.
#22 and yours did add something useful? yeah it did about as much as mine
“nvlddmkm has stopped responding 3 times and some of them have succesfully restarted. You can continue playing your game in half the screen” DirectX 10.1? Try playing a game in DirectX 10 in Vista, and then we’ll see about that 0.1
this is nothing, my company is going to launch a box with 8 cores…
You and your buddy haven’t been following technology all that long, go take a look around the net and then note the development being done in partnership with IBM on smaller die processes for their fabs. You don’t just churn out 32nm chips on a whim. Part of why NVIDIA and ATI are able to move faster in this realm is the outsourcing of the parts to TSMC. People have been debating that now for a while if they should or shouldn’t ditch their fabs so that the outside plants only have to worry about re-tooling.