AMD Demonstrates the PC’s Next Act at Experience Events Worldwide

At "experience events” on three continents this week, AMD (NYSE: AMD) and its industry partners introduced ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, a revolutionary feature in the upcoming next generation ATI Radeon™ family of DirectX^® 11 enabled graphics processors.

• This unique AMD innovation gives PCs the ability to seamlessly connect up to six ultra high definition displays in a variety of portrait and landscape configurations giving viewers a stunning new perspective on their PC experience. ATI Eyefinity is powered by one AMD graphics card for up to 12 times 1080p high-definition resolution, which approaches eye-definition optical clarity.¹
• ATI Eyefinity technology brings AMD closer to delivering true eye-definition experiences, where the display of a virtual environment is so detailed that it seems optically real to the human eye. Using ATI Eyefinity technology in a single PC, it is now possible to power displays with a combined theoretical resolution of 268 megapixels,² roughly equivalent to the resolution of a 90 degree arc of what the human eye sees.³ For reference, today’s average 19 inch LCD display typically has an image quality of only slightly more than 1 megapixel.⁴
• PCs with ATI Eyefinity technology expand game and virtual world environments to the largest ever experienced, allowing gamers to dominate the competition. For entertainment, education, and productivity applications, ATI Eyefinity practically obsoletes scrolling through vast desktop real estate that puts more information and stunning detail at users’ fingertips.
• AMD is working closely with leading display partner Samsung Electronics to introduce ultra-thin bezel monitors and compatible stands that can easily be tiled to create an even more immersive and virtually seamless ATI Eyefinity experience. The ultra-thin bezels will enable customers to create their own scalable display matrix. Samsung is the first to bring these displays to market.

A More Engaging PC Experience: Eye-Definition Gaming

Set to debut in retail and e-tail outlets before the Windows^® 7 operating system is launched, the next generation ATI Radeon family of graphics processors is set to bring computer enthusiasts and mainstream consumers the benefits of the most powerful processor ever created.⁵ To showcase the new experiences next generation ATI Radeon graphics will bring to PC users, AMD presented:

• PCs armed with the new ATI Radeon processors, capable of rendering incredibly complex virtual environments and characters unlike anything seen before.
• Scenes and digital actors that are almost indistinguishable from reality, rendered in real-time and shown as completely interactive.

A More Intuitive PC Experience: Making Things Simple

Further demonstrating the power of its approach to the market, AMD demonstrated how this new technology will work within AMD PC platforms to provide consumers a more intuitive experience. For example:

• AMD spotlighted the conversion of a home video file for use on a personal media player in Windows 7. The technology preview showed the potential of notebooks and PCs powered by new ATI Radeon graphics processors, where users simply drag a file like an HD video produced by popular pocket cameras, and an easy, visibly accelerated conversion of the file takes place.⁶

• The speed and intuitiveness of this popular processing-intensive task is unmatched by all-Intel platform offerings costing much more.

A More Empowering End-to-End PC Experience

ATI Eyefinity technology and the next generation family of ATI Radeon graphics processors were introduced as a part of a series of vivid demonstrations showing the next act for the PC: a total experience transformation from the moment consumers walk into a store, to easier access to advanced video processing, to the quality of entertainment experience new PCs deliver in the home or on the go.

Additional groundbreaking new technologies and concepts were also introduced by AMD and industry-leading partners:

• The AMD Next Generation Notebook Platform and the AMD Second Generation Ultrathin Platform for Notebooks also launched this morning, with a multitude of innovative OEM notebook designs on display. Notebooks based on the two platforms were shown to clearly demonstrate a superior visual entertainment experience — allowing consumers to enjoy HD videos on HD-capable panels, games and the Windows® 7 operating system, all at their best, on the go.
• These new notebook platforms and upcoming graphics technologies are the technological foundation for a new consumer merchandising campaign called VISION Technology from AMD, also announced today. The campaign is designed to make it easier for consumers to make informed PC buying decisions based on entertainment- and social networking-intensive customizations for the way PCs are used today, succeeding the outmoded industry approach of primarily emphasizing one part inside the PC. In mock retail settings at the "experience events,” AMD brought this new retail experience to life for its business partners across retail, OEMs, software providers, news media, industry analysts, and online communities.

Supporting Quotes

"ooVoo continues to push the boundaries of how people communicate online, giving people a simple, cost-effective video conferencing solution to connect with up to six people at work, at home and on-the-road,” said Philippe Schwartz, CEO of ooVoo. "And, with new ATI Eyefinity technology from AMD, users have the opportunity to experience a complete video conferencing experience that used to be available only with expensive hardware solutions.”

"Samsung has worked tirelessly to give consumers high-quality monitors that deliver both superb image quality and amazing design and ergonomics, and with our latest line of ultra-thin bezel displays, we’re bringing the best of both worlds to bear for a phenomenal computing experience using PCs with ATI Eyefinity technology,” said Young Bae, Director of Display Product Marketing for Samsung Electronics America, Information Technology Division. "Samsung’s ultra-thin bezel displays combined with ATI Eyefinity technology gives PC users a virtually seamless canvas on which to enjoy the latest games, entertainment and productivity applications.”

"As a worldwide leader in next-generation game development, Crytek is constantly looking for new and innovative ways to advanced the art of games to bring consumers the most exhilarating experience possible, and AMD’s new platform technologies answer that call,” said Cervat Yerli, CEO and President, Crytek. "Through the seamless multi-display ATI Eyefinity technology, and the raw compute power packed into the latest ATI Radeon graphics processors, Crytek has an incredible new canvas on which to present our latest PC games in ways that consumers have never experienced before.”

"Today’s revelation of the new experience made possible by PCs powered by AMD technology has been a long time coming,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Products Group, AMD. "Today marks the culmination of more than a million hours of design innovation from thousands of AMD engineers over the last few years, and the commitment of more than 100,000 channel partners. Today AMD marks a revolution in the PC experience powered by the most powerful processor in the world. More important though, is the experience we’re giving consumers today, making the PC more empowering, engaging and intuitive than ever before.”

Supporting Resources

• Blog: ATI Eyefinity’s Panoramic Future
• Pictures: See photos of ATI Eyefinity technology, examples of eye-definition gaming, and new PC technology logos on Flickr
• Press kit: More information on VISION Technology from AMD
• Press release: More information on the Second Generation AMD Ultrathin Platform and the 2009 AMD Mainstream Notebook Platform
• Twitter: Follow news from the AMD on Twitter at @AMD_Unprocessed
• Facebook: Become a fan of AMD technology on Facebook

About AMD

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and technology partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home and play. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

1. Full HD resolution is considered 1080p (1920x1080 = ~2.1 megapixels). One ATI Radeon graphics card with ATI Eyefinity technology supports 2560x1600x6 = ~24.6 megapixels for 12 x full HD resolution.

2. 268 megapixels is supported only with low refresh rates on future generation 8K x 8K display technology. For 3D gaming using current generation monitors and 60Hz refresh rates, 98.4 megapixels can be achieved.

3. Based on third-party research that explores theoretical eye resolution: http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/eye-resolution.html. According to the formula at the link provided, the effective amount of viewing arc is proportional to the square root of the number of pixels. ATI Eyefinity technology is capable of 8192x8192 pixels, making the maximum image size per graphics card 67 megapixels, or ~41 degrees of viewing arc. With four ATI Eyefinity-enabled graphics cards in a single system, the image size equals 268 megapixels or an 82 degree field of view.

4. Based on a 19 inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 1024.

5. Previously the fastest processor was the ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics processor capable of 1.36 TeraFLOPS of raw compute power. Internal calculations show that processors in the newest ATI Radeon processor family can achieve upwards of 2.5 TeraFLOPS.

6. Not all media players are compatible with the Windows 7 drag and drop functionality.

©2009, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, Radeon, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.