So, with the cat (or should I say Spider) out of the bag, here are my impressions of the whole thing. I believe that, what AMD presented in Warsaw is the beginning of a new way of thinking for many consumers. These days, believe it or not, consumers buy products based not how much performance they'll get for their €. Meaning, they decide that they have, let's say €500 to spend, and then see what's out there that can give them more performance.
Let's start from the foundation of the whole thing: the motherboard. AMD's 790FX is probably one of the best motherboards out there, bar none. It's definitely feature-packed, and it has support for several technologies that are to become mainstream soon, like PCI-e 2.0. But, the beauty of it, lies in its backwards-compatibility. So let's just say that you have an Athlon64 X2 right now, and you want to upgrade to the latest and greatest. You also don't have the money right now to get both a new CPU and a motherboard. What you do? Easy. You get a new AMD 790FX mobo, and you breath new life into your Athlon64. Better yet, initial testing show that this particular combination makes the Athlon64 overclock to heaven and back, with some impressive results hitting the net. Couple that with AMD Overclock, which is an excellent tool that will allow you to play and tweak at your heart's content, and the combination is surely promising, to say the least. Plus, if you don't want to invest in a Phenom right now, and would rather wait until AMD releases a higher-clocked version, you can.
Second thing, is the processor. The Phenom is the very first true quad-core processor out there, and many were disappointed with its initial clock speeds. But, I say, just look at the big picture. Did you actually see the prices these chips were released at? Affordable quad-core for everyone - plus, together with the 790FX you have some exciting stuff like un-ganging the memory, and so on and so forth. You probably saw in the various reviews around the net that memory performance was lacking - well, the truth is that several benchmarks don't actually recognise the Phenom's new architecture, and they think they're dealing with an old Athlon. Hence the low results. As for overclockability, I can only speak for the 2.4GHz Phenoms we had in Warsaw - each of them reached 2.8GHz easily, so I doubt that would be a problem.
Last but not least, the HD3850/HD3870. It's a midrange attack from AMD - these chips are cheap to produce, consume very little power and their performance/€ ratio is excellent. Plus, you get scalable Crossfire configuration with one to four cards (in the FX mobos). We had Crossfire X systems on show, which are working already, and the drivers should be released when the new year arrives. A special surprise was on show too, with a system running HD3870 X2 cards in Crossfire, showing how scalable this architecture really is.
But let's get back to the Spider platform. The beauty of it is that these three components actually work together. Meaning you actually see performance advantages by pairing all three together. It's the first release of its kind, and I didn't see many reviews on the net stretching that fact. I believe when reviewers have more time on their hands with the new platform, they will appreciate its advantages. I will post some benchmarks and impressions too as soon as I get a Spider system here to play with.
You can find all the crappy pics I took here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kombatant/SpiderLaunchWarsaw2007
After five days of hard work in Warsaw, I am finally back in Athens. We put some long hours there, making sure that everything was great, and I believe the AMD team did a great job. I do have some pictures of the event, but that will have to wait until Monday - but bear in mind that I am a lousy photographer :p
Oh I had missed England, I'll give you that :) Two days that involved lots of work, but I believe everything worked out great. I do believe I was in hardware heaven :drool:
In a few hours I will be flying to Warsaw for more work. Five days ahead of me, that I believe will be lots of fun, I will get to see familiar faces and friends again, and, of course, will help launching some solid products.
For those of you who are interested, here's a cool wallpaper for you, at all its 2560x1600 glory, so resize accordingly :)
One of the reasons I started posting in my blog often, believe it or not, is the new Windows Live Suite, which was released a few days ago. The Live Suite includes programs such as Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Writer, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Gallery. Here's a snip from the report eWeed did:
Microsoft has officially taken the beta moniker off the next generation of its Windows Live services, which it launched at events in New York and Los Angeles on Nov. 6. This new generation of Windows Live will be available in 36 languages and 59 countries across the world, and is the first integrated release of the services, Brian Hall, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Live business group, told eWEEK.
Windows Live is designed to focus on three main things: putting the user at the center, providing an integrated experience across everything that Microsoft does on this front and bringing the best of the Web to Windows, he said.
In line with that strategy, this release brings enhancements to popular services such as Windows Live Hotmail, Messenger and Spaces, while introducing new services for sharing digital photos, planning and sharing events, publishing to the Web, and staying in touch with people, Hall said.
Windows Live Writer in particular is a very handy application, and it's the one I use to update this blog - it works with all popular blogging sites, such as Blogger, Windows Live Spaces etc and offers an easy way to make posts. So I recommend it to those of you who don't need something fancy :)
My schedule is kinda crazy lately, I'll admit it. So it's London fist, this Friday, and then Warsaw on Friday. At least I'll get some Dr.Pepper with me back to Greece ^_^
It's been ages since I've updated this blog; I know. But I believe this is about to change. Anyway, lots of good stuff coming up next week, plus I have a certain trip to do ;)
On a totally unrelated note, I really wanted to install Windows Home Server yesterday - I had even assembled an older PC (AthlonXP 3000+, nForce4-SLI mobo, Radeon 9700 Pro :heart:, 2GB DDR1) for that; but my 40GB Hard disk felt unloved since the OS requests 65GB on installation. A big wtf from me to MS for that :confused:
On the gaming front, I am trying really hard to like NBA Live 08. It's certainly one of the buggiest games I've ever played, that's for sure. There are various issues that infuriate me, mostly the fact that every time I load my season I have to go and change the keyboard layout and customize the camera when the game starts because for some strange reason they don't get saved! When an opposite player is at the free throw line, you can forget getting a rebound after a missed free throw because your player is glued to the floor. And other annoyances. The biggest one of all though should be the 3-pointers. I can't for the life of me score outside the 3-point line, and you are talking to a guy who had mastered the run-and-gun style of play, with pick-and-rolls to get the free player etc. So now it's more of an inside game for me. Plus, the game seems easier for some reason now, the CPU is less of a challenge; I've played 10 season games with the Phoenix Suns, I have a 10-0 record so far (I am playing on Superstar) and the usual wins are by 15+ points difference. I really hope they'll fix the obvious stuff with a patch, but I am not holding my breath :bleh:
AMD's X2000 launch in Tunis was a success in my opinion, and here I am, back in Greece. Now the difficult part begins, where I have to be in constant contact with everyone before the NDA lifts, but it's fun :)
Once the NDA lifts I am going to post pictures and several other stuff, but until then, hold on to your horses!
I was in Munich from Monday to Wednesday, and it was a fun trip - I met up with Lars Weinand and we discussed strategies, where AMD currently has the upper hand and what we need to do to commute that to the press and the public. It's an exciting thing for me, basically because times are continually changing and with a position like mine, I have to constantly adapt to new challenges. I believe I can handle it though :) I loved the trip for one more reason: I hadn't spoken any Deutsch for about seven years, and this was a perfect opportunity for me to see whether I remember anything. Well, to be honest, the first day was hilarious because I could understand maybe 10% of what I heard, but the second day was much better, with the percentage rising to 60%! That actually made me hopeful that I'll be able to converse in German again very soon, which is good.
As an added bonus, I met up with Terry Makedon on Tuesday night and we went out for some dinner (thanks again Almut for the recommendation!). I hadn't seen him for over eight months, so it was catch up time mostly. Oh, and I also fell in love with the waitress that served us :heart:
Apart from all that, it's business as usual. I went to see the progress of my car today, and I am hopeful that by early next week the comrad shall be mine again :)
Counter was not working. Fixt :)
I am also going to Muenchen for the first time tomorrow afternoon. It'll be an excellent opportunity to remember my Deutsch, for which my vocabulary is non-existent these days. But I trust that it'll all come back to me eventually :)
March! Winter is behind us (although I do wonder what kind of winter this was; it seemed more like a prolonged Autumn here in Greece) and it's the time to start something new. As I blogged last week, as of today I no longer work for Siemens. Instead I will be helping out a little company called Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD in short. I don't believe in karma and stuff like that, but I find it a strange turn of events that I will be able to work with the company I have been a supporter since I first got a computer - just the fact that in my 15 years of owning a PC, I've only owned three non-AMD processors (and trust me, I have upgraded more than three times :p) should tell all. I will be helping out as a Technical PR Manager for European Online Media, a far cry from the C++ programming I did for Siemens the past year.
Because of that, I had to resign from my SuperModerator status in both Rage3D and Driverheaven, which was kind of awkward because up until a month ago I never saw myself doing a thing like that. I also had to stop being a freelancer for PC Magazine here in Greece, for the same reasons, which are pretty self-explanatory I believe.
So, as I said, new month, new challenges ahead - hopefully all will go well :)
P.S Wonder if I should start dropping hints on future AMD products in order to increase my blog's visibility now :sherlock:
An era comes to an end when this month closes. The reason is simple: I quit my job over at Siemens. It was a great year, in which I learned many new things, and hopefully I helped my colleagues and the company I currently work for. But, I can hear you ask, what are you going to do? Well, the reason I quit is because I got a job offer I simply could not refuse. Obviously some people who talk to me privately already know what this is all about, but I'd rather not reveal what I am going to do yet.
Stay tuned next week for updates; same Bat-time, same Bat-blog :D
I haven't updated this blog in ages, and there's proper reason for that: too much work these days. I think I'll start hating C++ (yes, that bad). Anyway, apart from that, I decided to stick with openSUSE for now, and not only that, but I've completed the configuration of my OS just the way I like it. Yes, I kept notes too, which simply means that the second part of last month's OpenSource Journal is on the way.
Not much else really... the next post will probably be the Journal entry, I'll try to finish it within the upcoming weekend. Click on to see how my current desktop looks like:
Usually I don't have time to hack stuff, but tonight I started looking for hacks for the new Blogger, and I found many - it seems many people are already hacking their code into the new Blogger, and that's definitely a good thing. I've had the tabs for a while now, and they are very convenient to navigate the blog, as it gets larger. Well, today I added two more: as you can probably see, the larger posts have a Read More... link, which expands when clicked to show the full post. Other than that, I added link preview functionality via Snap.com, which is also pretty cool to look at.
I've also looked around to see what Wordpress can do, and I must say, some of the plugins that exist are too cool - of course you need a proper host to have all that, but nevermind. It feels like a whole new world to explore to me, and since I've been toying with the idea of starting a site of my own, I think I'll do just that :) Here are some of the blogs I've found that deal with Blogger hacks:
Hoctro's Place
Hackosphere
Beautiful Beta
Blogger Hacked
To sum up this post, I wanted to introduce you lot to Windows Live Writer. Yes, it's from Microsoft, and it's a mini-word processor especially for blogs. And yes, apart from Windows Live Spaces, it also works with Blogger. As a matter of fact, this very post is made with WLW. Here is the website where you can get it from:
http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/Edit: I modified the top graphic a bit with the help of The Gimp, and also finished modifying a script a while ago, that allows me to use the most common Rage3D smileys over here. Here's an example: :) ;) :( :D :p :cool: :drool: :bleh: :evil: :wtf: :lol: :mad: :wave: :confused: :rolleyes: :Pics:
So... 2007 is upon us eh. First of all, may I wish a very merry Happy New Year to whomever reads these lines and actually cares what's up in the Kombatant Lair these days. The past week was rather uneventful, which is definitely a good thing - not much happening at work, 15min drive to get there (gotta love it when Athens is empty due to vacations :)), heaven I tell you!
Oh, I got myself a new toy, as you can probably see in the image that accompanies this post. Yup, I am back to Nokia, and this time I got myself a proper Symbian phone, the N80 (black edition of course). This thing has practically everything + the kitchen sink, and it should keep me occupied for quite a while. I especially love the fact that it's got Wi-Fi capabilities, so I can connect easily to my wireless ADSL router here at home and browse the net without having to sit in front of my PC. Plus, I've downloaded a whole bunch of cool apps, including VNC clients, media players and so on and so forth. If only the battery would last longer (only two days)... :bleh:
By the way, I think I made up my mind about what distro I will use. OpenSUSE is nice et al, but something doesn't quite click about it. I don't know how to put it really, it's just not a distro that'll make a fan out of you. So I'll probably install Gentoo at some point (unless I chicken out and go back to Ubuntu - yeah I know, my decisiveness is mind-blowing :p)
So Happy New Year Everyone, and don't believe
ALL the R600 rumours that are flying around these days ;)
P.S As you probably noticed I changed the top graphic somewhat - this comes from a great wallpaper I found over at
interfacelift.com, and to be more specific, from
Pacific City by
Chris Fenison.
