AMD's new Platform: Codname "Spider"
 AMD has today unveiled its new platform codenamed “Spider”, with the first true quad-core processor supporting scalable graphics for "The Ultimate Visual Experience™". The AMD Spider platform combines the introduction of AMD Phenom™ quad-core processors, ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series graphics processors with Microsoft DirectX® 10.1 support, AMD 7-Series chipsets with CrossFireX™ and AMD OverDrive™ software.
The AMD Spider platform is a major milestone on the path to Accelerated Computing, AMD’s vision for platform-level acceleration through co-processing.
“AMD is the only company committed to delivering The Ultimate Visual Experience across all the screens of your life,” said Dirk Meyer, president and COO, AMD. “The AMD Spider platform embodies our approach to platform-level innovation and delivers a highly-advanced, feature-rich enthusiast computing experience. Our commitment to energy-efficient design and manufacturing excellence drives an unprecedented performance-per-watt at an amazing price point, putting enthusiast-class platforms in reach for more users than ever before.”
The combination of the energy-efficient 55nm ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series of graphics processors and the increased system bandwidth of PCI Express® Generation 2.0 and HyperTransport™ 3.0 technology, provide optimal processing power for a scalable HD multi-GPU experience.
 “Falcon Northwest is particularly impressed with the quad ATI CrossFireX potential of the new AMD Spider platform,” said Kelt Reeves, president of Falcon Northwest. “Running four graphics boards in one system has been a dream of gamers, but could be a nightmare for a system builder to get all those graphics cards proper airflow. The cohesive nature of the Spider platform design allows the AMD 7-Series chipset, high-performing AMD Phenom quad-core processor, and the already cool and quiet ATI Radeon HD 3800 graphics cards to all be placed for maximum airflow and cooling. AMD has made massive multi-GPU performance easy to build, and affordable.”
AMD’s new Spider platform offers a new class of enthusiast platform scalability, with multiple upgrade options to increase performance and boost compatibility with configurations that can deliver an estimated two teraflops of desktop processing power by harnessing four graphics processors. The multi-core design of AMD Phenom quad-core processors, based on Direct Connect Architecture, features an integrated memory controller designed to support memory speeds up to DDR2 1066, 128-bit floating point units and AMD’s Balanced Smart Cache for rapid access to memory, with a shared L3 cache for leading-edge performance on multi-threaded software.
“AMD has a long history of delivering compelling hardware innovations so that consumers and enthusiasts can enjoy new experiences and take full advantage of the capabilities that our products including Windows Vista deliver,” said John Schappert, corporate vice president of LIVE Software and Services at Microsoft. “The AMD Spider platform adds a new dimension to AMD’s excellence in driving platform robustness and scalability, designed to deliver the utmost in upgradeability and performance with the new tri- and quad-GPU solution for Windows Vista.”
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