20 April
2001
Technical
Presentation
There was a lot of excellent technical information provided
for those building systems with AMD processors. Unfortunately,
they didn't have all the slides in our seminar materials and
I didn't realize that until after the presentation had started.
Consequently, I never wrote down the "Seven Deadly Sins"
of processor mounting. While not coming out and addressing
the durability issue of their processor packaging, the presenter
drilled us on the proper placement of the heatsinks and the
importance of making sure the heatsink is approved by AMD.
Without a heat sink (or an improperly mounted one), a processor
can be "fried" in as little as four seconds.
Speaking of heat, AMD recommends that case temperature
never exceeds 42 degrees Celsius.
Thermal
Compounds
The AMD rep spent a fair amount of time on this subject alone.
The basic message was this, avoid using thermal grease.
He explained that since thermal grease is already a liquid
at room temperature, it runs freely when heated. Since there
are traces (circuit items) on the top of their processor package,
this grease can spread over those items and destroy the CPU.
This is exasperated if the motherboard is mounted vertically
like in a tower case. He also discussed the proper application
of thermal pads and thermal compounds.
Power
Supplies
Systems builders can sometimes overlook the importance of
using quality power supplies. Also, there are a lot of unscrupulous
vendors out there selling uncertified ATX power supplies.
AMD told the audience about multiple occassions where they
certified a vendors' power supply only to have them slap that
model number on an uncertified part. It's important to note
that an ATX power supply must have a vent on the bottom
of the power supply to remove heat from the CPU. As for
size, their upcoming dual solutions will require a staggering
460 Watt power supply!
Driver
Installation
One of the problems that AMD hears about frequently is improper
driver installation. When it was primarily an Intel world,
builders didn't have to worry about chipset drivers - the
OS usually contained default drivers for the chipset. Nowadays
with chipsets from AMD, VIA, ALi and SiS, installing the chipset
driver is critical to proper operation of the machine. Here
is AMD's recommended order of driver installation:
| 1. |
Chipset/AGP
driver |
| 2. |
Graphics
driver |
| 3. |
Soundcard
driver |
| 4. |
Network
Card driver |
Dual
Processors
The
speaker transistioned from installation issues to current
and future projects. The item that caused the most buzz was
dual processors and the 760MP chipset. We were told to expect
the dual processor solutions to be available by the end of
June. The Tyan Thunder K7 is currently making the rounds but
is under NDA. However, what really made people sit up in their
seats was the announcement of dual-Duron solutions. They claimed
that while these machines are screamers, they would be affordable
SMP solutions. Personally, that may make me consider going
to the business version of Windows XP just to get SMP support.
What a change from Intel, who went out of their way to squash
dual-Celeron solutions.
Ever
since AMD became a threat to Intel, there have been two fronts
of this war: price and speed. They have traditionally been
competitive on price with Intel. They had no choice. Only
recently have they challenged Intel on speed. While the pricing
helped keep Intel honest, it wasn't enough. However, with
AMD ramping up speed with ease, Intel was forced to "keep
up with the Jones". Unfortunately, as we saw with the
1.13GHz Pentium III, Intel could not keep up.
While
Intel lost ground in the consumer market, they were safe in
the SMP market. They could charge premium prices and fear
no competition...but that is about to change. The promise
of the 760MP chipset is glorious speed at a reasonable price.
Now even the workstation/server market (Intel's golden goose)
is no longer safe.
