After a year, AMD gives the middle finger to Quad FX owners (all five of them) and forgets its promises of continued support and upgrades. In the end the only processors for the Quad FX platform will be the ones that launched with it.
Reminder: BaronMatrix said at this time last year that this would be the next big thing. Apparently he was not correct.
I feel this is a good move on AMD's part. I don't think there's money to be made in the consumer dual-socket market. Thank goodness!
There is money to be made but only at the ultra high-end, Apple used dual socket boards until they switched to Intel chips and there was a reason for the switch. I don't think the high-end can cover the cost of the R&D required to make it work much less give them the profit to make it worth it. I think the money would be better spent researching the Fusion idea because I think that's really the next big thing at the low to mid-end and that's where the money is.
--------------- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle
My impression was always that Quad FX was really an example of AMD grasping at straws...a somewhat poor investment for consumers looking for platform upgradability. ...especially given the roadmaps and competition. Quad FX's demise is truly expected albeit a little late, IMO. AMD makes great products but Quad FX wasn't one of them, IMO.
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Yes, I use an Intel Quad. Sometimes its a little overclocked, sometimes a bit underclocked. Yet, its always nice and the virtualiztion is sick. And?
call me crazy, but despite the insanely high cost, the amount of power it used, the fact that you needed dedicated memory for each cpu, the need for upgraded cooling, and that the cpu's weren't sold in pair like they promised, i liked it.
I think its terrible. There IS money to be made, thats why Intel is coming out with their own dual quad socket.
Intel did Skulltrail just to show that it wasn't hard to do a dual socket for non-server uses.
The simple fact is that dual socket for home use was being done before QuadFX or Skulltrail. The biggest advantage QuadFX had was that it used regular DDR2, and not FB-DIMMs, like Skulltrail.
Both systems were pretty much overkill for any personal use, imo. I think it is a good thing AMD dropped it, although, it is a bit shady to do so after hyping it so much during it's release. I would be pissed if I had purchased a QuadFX system, that's for sure. I would at least ask AMD to compensate me with a Spider platform.
Intel did Skulltrail just to show that it wasn't hard to do a dual socket for non-server uses.
The simple fact is that dual socket for home use was being done before QuadFX or Skulltrail. The biggest advantage QuadFX had was that it used regular DDR2, and not FB-DIMMs, like Skulltrail.
Skulltrail is a joke FB-DIMMS, 2 x16 1.1 slots over a x16 1.1 link from the intel chipset to a nvidia chip + a other 2 x16 1.1 slots over a x16 1.1 link over the other nvidia chip + you need 4 FB-DIMMS to get the full bandwidth.
No other stuff the other high end nvidia chipsets have tcp / ip offload and teaming.
Have that many chips on the board with push cost and heat past what the QuadFX is at.
I think AMD made a mistake... not by dropping it... but by HOW they dropped it. The people that bought those systems were hard-core AMD fanatics... and this is how they're repaid? By getting kicked to the curb with a dead-end upgrade path?!? Considering how few people actually bought these things, AMD should do the right thing and send rebates (nothing major... maybe $100 or $200) to the owners that would count towards a Phenom system... that'd keep 'em in the AMD camp and get AMD some much needed GOOD press.
What a bunch of crap.AMD owes it to the gaming community to keep on the QUAD FX system.There is plenty of money to be made by them on that platform.Just because it's having difficulties getting it to perform like it was expected and wanted to,doesn't mean they need to scrap the program.Dual processor boards have been out for a long time.Most servers use them in fact.The biggest problem they were having was the performance just wasn't what it should have been.You'd think that with the new HT2.0 architecture,they would be able to increase the flow of info between the cpu's and the northbridge and the memory,thereby increasing performance.Although I agree AMD needs to focus on making better processors,that doesn't mean that QUADFX should be junked.It just needs to be revised and refined.
Dahak
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I think the writing was on the wall for the QFX last spring, when AMD announced that the proposed FX76 would not be released. I personally liked the platform, or at least its idea. I didn't like the execution of it, the super hot and slow chips. I do wonder how good it might have been if a chip similar to the 5000+ Black Edition would have been designed for it. Smaller die, less power used, good overclocks, maybe that combo would have done good things for the QFX. Now we'll never know. Not that I cared all that much, but at least the base idea around the QFX sounded good.
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Evil lurks in the databanks as it lurked in the streets of yesteryear. But it was never the streets that were evil.
