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AMD Expands Vision Brand

NEW YORK— AMD announced a
major increase in the number of computers
expected to be equipped with
AMD processors, and the expansion
of its Vision brand into the desktop
PC arena.

“This is the largest consumer client
launch in AMD’s
history,” said Rick
Bergman, senior
VP/GM of AMD’s
products group,
during a webcast
last week.

He added this is also the first time
the company has simultaneously
launched products across all its
platforms.

AMD reported that 109 mainstream
and 41 ultra-thin notebooks will be
equipped with the company’s processors.

The four-tiered branding effort,
rolled out last fall, is the company’s primary effort to tell consumers which
processor is right for their needs without
relying on their understanding the chips
speeds and feeds. The four levels are:

• Basic Vision – for casual gaming, music,
video and photo viewing.

• Premium – Blu-ray/HD video viewing,
video conversion, basic photo editing,
watching TV on the PC, music ripping,
Web cam.

• Ultimate – create/edit movies, advanced
photo editing, edit/mix music,
3D and online gaming, TV DRV.

• Black – overclockable, best 3D gaming
experience.

“We want to move away from the technical
jargon that nobody understands
anyway,” Bergman said.

Keeping with the spirit of Vision, none of
the AMD executives mentioned any specifications of their latest processors during
the webcast, but described the upgrades
in relation to what the chips now deliver.

AMD said it has upgraded the chip
architecture for its third generation of
ultra-thin processors,
Vision Premium, extending
battery life
out to eight hours and
boosting overall performance
by 22 percent.

The architecture
also sports integrated
graphics allowing ultra-thin notebooks
to deliver a better visual experience without
a corresponding increase in the size
of the laptop, said Leslie Sobon, AMD’s
product and platform marketing VP.

Improvements for mainstream laptops
include seven hours of battery life, better
3D performance and quad cores.

In the desktop space, AMD is including
its quad- and six-core processors in
the Vision campaign.

One major upgrade to the six-core processor
is its ability to turn off unneeded
cores as an energy- and
heat-saving measure.
In addition, computers
equipped with these
processors will come
with a software utility
allowing end users to
overclock the processors
to deliver more
power. This is a task normally done by a
vendor when a PC is being constructed.

Dell will use the high-end Black Vision
Phenom II X6 six-core in its Dell Studio
XPS 7100. This is the first time Dell has
used an AMD processor in a premiumpriced
desktop, said Lane McCullough,
Dell’s product group consumer product
planner.

“This is a low-cost, but fast PC,” Mc-
Cullough said, adding using the AMD
processor allows Dell to offer a highend
machine to budget-conscious enthusiasts.

AMD said the processor itself costs
$300 per chip or about $700 less than
competitive models.

The XPS 7100 is available direct from Dell
immediately with a starting price of $699
and will be at retail later this summer.

Acer’s Joe Castillo, senior director,
U.S. consumer, said the company will
launch 20 AMD Vision-based models
for the back-to-school selling season, including
an AMD-powered HD netbook.

Hewlett-Packard last week announced
several portable products with an AMD
processor option.

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