AMD Spider Launched!

AMD officially launched their Phenom quad-core desktop processors on November 19, 2007, beating predictions that AMD will fail yet again to meet their deadline. In fact, they are a little early, having promised that the Phenom will be out in December.

Things are finally looking up for the beleaguered AMD. Not only were they able to launch the Phenom quad-core processors, they also launched two new ATI Radeon HD 3800 graphics cards and the new AMD 790 chipset, all part of their new desktop gaming platform called Spider. So what is the AMD Spider all about? This chart explains it quite succinctly :

The AMD Spider platform consists of three new AMD high-end components - the AMD Phenom processor, the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series graphics card and a motherboard based on the AMD 790 chipset. Do note that the AMD Spider platform revolves around these high-end components. As an enthusiast gaming platform, it does not cover the lower-end AMD processor, the older Radeon HD 2000 series graphics cards or even the new AMD 770-based motherboards.

So, what does the AMD Spider Platform offer? Let's give AMD's marketing folks an opportunity to summarize the key innovations of the AMD Spider.

In short, the AMD Spider not only delivers the industry's first "true" quad-core processor, it also gives gamers the first motherboard chipset built using the 65 nm process technology as well as the ability to run up to four graphics cards. Very impressive, isn't it? Well, let's take a look at each component separately.