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Have you tried the AMD compiler yet? Its free and according to the one that originally found the "Intel cripple code" it does NOT favor any one chip over another but actually checks the use flags like a compiler SHOULD, not this CPUID market rigging bullshit. while it was originally based on GCC they have added a bunch of optimizations and updates to GCC to make it faster and support the latest and greatest.

Here is the link at least I think, its been awhile since I went looking for dev tools, but as you can see its supports C,C++,and Fortran, and unlike Intel doesn't use CPUID or favor one chip over another. Maybe you running a couple of tests and posting results would make a good /. follow up article?

First they must discover that they need to download old drivers. They then must locate the proper driver version, which may no longer be officially hosted, and difficult to find.

Bullshit. You can still find Windows 9X drivers on AMD's site and those actually predate AMD owning ATi.
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/legacy-98me.aspx

You're also going to have to deal with the fact that the OS won't have any new security patches as well, or haven't you heard.

Only the future will tell for certain, but lack of legacy support is something ATI is already familiar with. Anyone with a pre HD* card trying to get decent hardware acceleration with a linux kernel version newer than 3.0 knows that feel.

Hopefully the story from a few days ago is good news then!
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/06/26/1746224/amd-overhauls-open-source-linux-driver

If they decided to take the resources from XP drivers and put them into Linux drivers, then I say DEATH TO XP!

Hell, you could probably find Win98 stuff to get a 15 year old computer working if for some strange reason you really wanted to.

Like you could download them directly from AMD's own driver repository.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/legacy-98me.aspx

The idea that you would want to resort to torrenting them is ridiculous.

Find old versions right here: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/previous/Pages/radeonaiw_xp.aspx

I went to AMD's driver site, which I found with the google search, "amd catalyst download". I clicked on "Windows XP (32 bit)". Then I clicked on "Previous Drivers and Software."

They are already going for ARM Opterons. See http://www.amd.com/us/aboutamd/newsroom/Pages/presspage2012Oct29.aspx.

I agree. All the chips in the FX TDP arena are 95-125W. I'm thinking it'll be more, but not almost double. More in the 140-165W range. AMD is going for the 5 GHz media sensation buzz, not power buzz.

They're working on it: http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/JimKellerJoinsAMD-2012aug01.aspx

Or, use out-of-band management built into most business hardware of the last 5+ years to completely power off systems, and remotely power them up on an as-needed basis for management tasks such as backup and deployment.

Intel AMT: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/intel-active-management-technology.html
AMD DASH: http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/systems-management/Pages/manageability-desktops-notebooks.aspx

Power off PCs at set time via group policy, wake them up with a direct HTTP packet, shut them down afterward with whatever task they are performing. Save money now without the get-rich-quick bullshit.

1. You have no clue what you are talking about

2. You have no fucking clue what you are talking about!

This is a discussion about the combined GPU + CPU design for the Playstation 4, not about any announced products on the shelf from AMD or Nvidia. This is a TRUE part to be released only by Sony, and it will have access to 8GB shared GDDR5 with a 256-bit bus to feed the GPU/CPU combination.

Please note, mainframes and most mini computers went 64 bit in the 1990s. x86 and ARM are the last to do so.

IBM mainframes went 64-bit in 2000. Opteron came out in 2003, so, yes, x86 went 64-bit after System/3x0 did (by 3 years). However, System/3x0 (feel free to set x = 10 for z/Architecture :-)) went 64-bit long after, for example, MIPS did.

But, yes, at least for non-embedded computing, we probably won't have a lot of 32-bit machines, and most if not all 64-bit software platforms that have time_t have a 64-bit time_t.

It is already happening. For example the Catalyst 13.1 Linux release notes mention "[366820] Performance of Valve Linux games" as one of the improvements.

though ARM has video as SoC as a matter of course, Intel and AMD server chips do not have Video on package... yet....

Then what are these AMD APU's?

APUs are not server chips. And the server ARMs don't have video either.

though ARM has video as SoC as a matter of course, Intel and AMD server chips do not have Video on package... yet....

Then what are these AMD APU's?

Yes video with sound but like I posted there was some weird issues with these driver http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx not installing properly. When I tired to open catalyst it said it wasn't installed so I was a bit confused. So I went into package manager and installed the catalyst drivers again. It went through the install and after a reboot the sound over HDMI worked. Also if I installed the driver from the repos first sound still wouldn't work I did however had issues with Mint 13 XFCE. I also tried Kubuntu and installed drivers from restricted driver which work fine but I didn't like the KDE interface..

Now should add installing the AMD drivers from AMD site on the laptop borked KDE but using the opensource ones with the change to Grub worked good, I just didn't feel like trying to the the AMD ones doing.

Unless you're in a datacenter and need the density...

HP Blades

ORNL just put 18,000 Opterons to good use. http://www.amd.com/us/press-releases/Pages/amd-top-500-supercomputer-sites-2012nov12.aspx So even the US gov has has a stake in this. Maybe getting more bang for the buck is becoming more popular in the .gov purchasing? I know that intel has done classified development for the .govs, I am not sure about what AMD has done. General rule is that classified contractors are not allowed to die. That does not mean they can't merge and get smaller.

Too bad that servers are pretty much like desktops, the octo-core FX-8350 competes against quad-core i5/i7s and their 16-core server chips compete against Intel's octo-cores. You might as well say AMD is winning the desktop market because they're the only one to offer "lots of cores".

So, AMD 16 core part for $519 per socket for Intel for over $1000 for an 8 core.

A 6200 series CPU with the same cores as "Bulldozer" yes, it's called a fire sale. I'm guessing that price is the Opteron 6272. Well they're selling it for $4 less than AMDs bulk price, probably to get rid of inventory, I doubt Newegg will keep selling these at a loss for very long. If you want the 6300 series CPUs with the same cores as the FX-8350 then

a) You must pay over $700
b) It launched a week ago
c) It's nowhere to be found and no review site has gotten a chip for testing

P.S. There are some bizarrely expensive 10-core Intel chips, lots of high end RAS functions etc. but they're in a market where AMD has no offerings at all.

Your GPU card does more than just output video. The GPUs on these cards are designed for brute force calculations and chugging through numbers. They're designed for physics engines, running through protein folding calculations, and rendering high quality video in real time.

If you want to equate them to a design in the past, think of them as really really really powerful math co-processors. CPUs are designed for short command queues and calculations that are hard to predict the next step, while GPUs are designed for long command queues and easily predictable calculations.

...and we've been using teraflop scale on desktops since 2008.

The problem is the graphics GPU, not the CPU. The Mac Pro desktop has a ATI Radeon HD 5770 card. If you look at ATI's 5000 series list, you'll see that's right in the middle of the product line. Considering how much the system as a whole costs, some people feel that's not good enough.

The "Retina" MacBook pros have an even worse problem. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M is also nowhere near the top of their mobile line. But the resolution being driven is one of the highest available. A fair number of people pushing it hard have discovered it's really not capable of keeping up with that system's 2880 x 1800 display very well.

They re-used "HyperThreading" as the branding for something new, too, despite its name being associated with nothing but bad the first time. Anyway, Intel's Turbo Boost is a great feature for making single task systems faster, ones that weren't benefiting from having more cores around. AMD's Turbo CORE is obviously inspired by that, but hasn't been quite as good so far. This latest generation of chips from AMD closes more of the gap between them and Intel in that area though.

It usually normally takes a day or so for replays to be posted but it should show up on the AMD Investor Relations Website (same site that hosted the live webcast).

I saw those reviews before I purchased the chip, but thanks for the links anyways. The Wikipedia article (there's one for everything... ) goes into the Tomshardware and other reviews you cited , the initial reception of the chip and AMD's response and some adjustments they made.

I tried not to give the impression that I am defending this chip . Actually, I consider the attention both good and bad this chip has gotten to be to my benefit so I could make an informed buying decision. I also appreciate your obvious enthusiasm for the subject and take it for what it is.

From Wiki:

The first Bulldozer CPUs were met with a mixed response. It was discovered that the FX-8150 performed poorly in benchmarks that were not highly threaded, falling behind the second-generation Intel Core i* series processors and being matched or even outperformed by AMD's own Phenom II X6 at lower clock speeds.

In highly threaded benchmarks, the FX-8150 performed on par with the Phenom II X6, and the Intel Core i7 2600K, depending on the benchmark.

Given the overall more consistent performance of the Intel Core i5 2500K at a lower price, these results left many reviewers underwhelmed.

The processor was found to be extremely power-hungry under load, especially when overclocked, compared to Intel's Sandy Bridge.[27][28]

The Tom's Hardware website commented that the lower-than-expected performance in multi-threaded workloads may be because of the way Windows 7 currently schedules threads to the cores.

They point out that "if Windows were able to utilize an FX-8150's four modules first, and then backfill each module's second core, it'd maximize performance with up to four threads running concurrently."

This is similar to what happens on Intel CPUs with HyperThreading â" Windows 7 "schedules to physical cores before utilizing logical (HyperThreaded) cores."[29]

On 13 October, AMD stated on its blog that "there are some in our community who feel the product performance did not meet their expectations", but showed benchmarks on actual applications where it outperformed "Sandy Bridge i7 2600k" and "AMD X6 1100T".[30]

On 6 March 2012, AMD posted a knowledge base article stating that there was a compatibility issue with FX processors, and certain games on the widely used digital game distribution platform, Steam. AMD stated that they had provided a BIOS update to several motherboard manufacturers (namely: Asus, Gigabyte Technology, MSI, and ASRock) that would fix the issue.[31]

I have an recent ASUS MB that I bought with the chip and I am telling you I think the chip is blazing. Just my opinion. I also have zero problem keeping it in the 75 F range ... it gets up to 95 F when it's working on file compression / comparison for a LONG time-.. I mean hours and hours.

As far as energy is concerned, the less energy the better no question. My house has LED lights and tons of insulation , plus we source 10% of our power from renewable resources thanks to our local utility so.. meh.. won't feel it in the pocketbook and the my fellow earthlings won't feel increased carbon emissions because of it either.

All the apps I run are muti-threaded.. woudl 6have done? Perhaps uut the 8 outperform the 6, as the AMD footnote cited by Wiki shows.

Right now, this is the best chip AMD has to offer and as I said intel was not an option for moral reason. So I bought the best I could . Buying the best was not out of my price range, and that doesn't happen in too many categories of Things I Wish I Owned.

I liked AMD's reposte and benchmarks here ...and also notice what the first commentor has to say; I fully concur, and no, it wasn't me.

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2011/10/13/our-take-on-amd-fx/

Thanks for the lively discussion.

When AMD first released dual core CPU's there was some problem with RDTSC. AMD then released this utility. A lot of games had stupid stuttering issues without it, so not always as dire as an application crash, but it was on more than a few games. Problems could also be resolved by forcing the application to a single core.

Connected 4 to 16 USB Keyboards (optionally mice as well) and connect same amount of monitors to a few video cards like: http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/graphics_cards/m_series/m9188pciex16/ or http://www.amd.com/us/products/workstation/graphics/ati-firemv-2d/ati-firepro-2450-mv/Pages/ati-firepro-2450-mv.aspx or USB to Video.... http://ca.startech.com/AV/USB-Video-Adapters/USB-DVI-External-Multi-Monitor-Video-Adapter~USB2DVIE2 There is software out here to create virtual machines for each monitor and to connect a set of Keyboard/mouse to each monitor. With Windows 98, you can connect up to 9 displays. With Windows NT, you can connect up to 20 displays to one system With Windows 2000, XP, you can connect up to 10 displays to one system. With Window Vista - you can connect minimum of 10 displays to one system. - possibly up to 16 With Windows 7 & 8, you can connect up to 16 displays to one system -possibly more

This is completely irrelevant, and AMD does not make low-power x86 chips anymore.

Ahem, please do your homework before spouting bullshit.
Go shill somewhere that doesn't have access to google

There's a big problem, however: http://developer.amd.com/sdks/AMDAPPSDK/assets/App_Note-Running_AMD_APP_Apps_Remotely.pdf

To run apps that use AMD's GPU's remotely (ie. not from a local X11 session - and I mean "Local X11 session"), you have to open a security hole so big you can fit Rush Limbaugh's ego through it.

* Log into the system as root.
* Add "Xhost +" to your X11 startup config (so every X session allows anybody to access it... with root permissions)
* chmod ugo+rw /dev/ati/card*

I asked a group of devs from X.org how stupid it was... the short answer is "how stupid is giving root access to everybody?"

So, I asked AMD when they were planning on fixing the problem.

Short answer: Not for the foreseeable future.

I seem to recall a similar issue where CERT told users not to use AMD drivers for Windows, because it forces Windows to disable many of its security features.

I'm sensing a trend...

Do you want this kind of irresponsibility in the datacenter? EVER?

Like anyone ever changes paste!
It just does not happen in the real world until you find the device suffering overheating issues.

You seem to be arguing from the basis that there is something better than pads, and that fact alone out weighs the mess, the fact that paste dries out, and gets pumped out from where its needed.

That's just a silly line of argument. The solution chosen need only be good enough, it doesn't have to be the best available. And any solution that requires routine maintenance in a consumer electronic device is way worse than something that works ever so slightly less well but lasts forever with zero attention.

The fact is that pads are more than good enough, becoming ubiquitous, and used more and more in manufacturing.

Since 2004, Thermal pads are the solution AMD recommends for AMD Athlonô MP, AMD Athlon XP and
AMD Duron processors. The advantages of thermal pads for these processors include:
  They can be handled more easily than thermal grease.
  The thermal pad interface material is less likely to be pumped out of the space between the
processor die and the heatsink surface.
  The thermal compound is distributed in a uniform manner on the thermal interface pads.
  The pads contain the appropriate dosage needed to achieve optimal heat dissipation to the
heatsink.

AMD commited last year for all their products to support Core Boot:

http://blogs.amd.com/work/2011/05/05/an-update-on-coreboot/

we would all be better off if AMD (not to mention Nvidia) adopted Intel's approach to paying people for open-source work.

I thought that AMD had a number of devs working on open graphics drivers and on other open stuff like Coreboot...right?

Here's their "Open Source Zone", and here's Kevin Tanguay's blog post of May 5, 2011 (emphasis mine):

AMD is now committed to support coreboot for all future products on the roadmap starting next with support for the upcoming “Llano” APU. AMD has come to realize that coreboot is useful in a myriad of applications and markets, even beyond what was originally considered. Consequently, AMD plans to continue building its support of coreboot in both features and roadmap for the foreseeable future.

we would all be better off if AMD (not to mention Nvidia) adopted Intel's approach to paying people for open-source work.

I thought that AMD had a number of devs working on open graphics drivers and on other open stuff like Coreboot...right?

Here's their "Open Source Zone", and here's Kevin Tanguay's blog post of May 5, 2011 (emphasis mine):

AMD is now committed to support coreboot for all future products on the roadmap starting next with support for the upcoming “Llano” APU. AMD has come to realize that coreboot is useful in a myriad of applications and markets, even beyond what was originally considered. Consequently, AMD plans to continue building its support of coreboot in both features and roadmap for the foreseeable future.

Why should Nvidia subscribe to the projects "goals and visions"? Thats the projects concern, not theirs.

As long as NVidia is interested in GPGPU programming of their GPUs on Linux, it is NVidia's concern.
It's a niche market but it's with high margins. NVidia could leave but that would mean that AMD is pretty much uncontested and AMD supports Linux: http://developer.amd.com/sdks/AMDAPPSDK/downloads/Pages/default.aspx

Hey Drinkypoo, according to this post you'll need the drivers for the Toshiba Satellite L505D-GS6000 if you want to run Win 7, as they used the same chipset with Windows 7, if you want to run XP instead there are links at that post for drivers which work under XP. If you want to keep Vista I'd suggest you look up a copy of "TinyVista", its not easy to find but its a stripped down gamer version of Vista that actually runs a little better than XP on laptop hardware and of course all your current drivers will work. HTH.

But this is why i tell my customers when it comes to mobile ALWAYS buy it with the OS you want to run, because OEMs are the worst at dropping support for their laptops. Hell if I stuck with only the OEM drivers I wouldn't have had an update, nor support for DivX hardware acceleration, because they haven't released a single update since they released the unit. That's why i tell folks don't use a laptop as their only machine, the support is terrible and while its easy to get upgrades to most of the common desktop hardware often you'll find chips in mobile that were supported for a few months then dropped thus leaving you stranded. Sorry you got stuck and hope those work for you.

I think if your monitors had the passthrough ports then all you would need would be 2 DisplayPorts on the video card.

I did the How To at http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/amd-eyefinity-technology/Pages/eyefinity.aspx
and it recommends a 6850 or 6950 (I have) for a 4 monitor setup.

Were you thinking of the 5870 Eyefinity Edition which actually has 6 DisplayPort outputs? I believe the 6000 series and up have the newer DisplayPort for daisychaining.

This guy used a 6950 with 4 odd monitors - http://www.uberreview.com/2012/03/amd-6950-eyefinity-review-and-how-to.htm
But he used all the ports instead of daisychaining DisplayPort only.

Here they say 6 monitors are good with 2 DisplayPorts if you have daisychaining monitors.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/309846-33-eyefinity-monitors
"DP 1.2 monitors have 2+ ports, with which you can connect up to 3 monitors in serial. Two ports on the card, so 6 monitors that way. You can do this only with native DisplayPort 1.2 supportive monitors. No DP-DVI dongles work. "

There are also eoma68 cards in the works using the AMD Fusion APU's that will only use open source firmware so you won't have to settle for EFI or a closed BIOS as you have to with Intel.

1ghz Dual-Core CPU with AMD Radeon HD 6250 GPU,
http://rhombus-tech.net./amd_g_series/

AMD APUs for Notebooks, Netbooks & Tablets
http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/NOTEBOOK/APU/Pages/tablet.aspx#3

AMD Embedded G-Series Platform
http://www.amd.com/us/products/embedded/processors/Pages/g-series.aspx
http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/49282_G-Series_platform_brief.pdf

There are also eoma68 cards in the works using the AMD Fusion APU's that will only use open source firmware so you won't have to settle for EFI or a closed BIOS as you have to with Intel.

1ghz Dual-Core CPU with AMD Radeon HD 6250 GPU,
http://rhombus-tech.net./amd_g_series/

AMD APUs for Notebooks, Netbooks & Tablets
http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/NOTEBOOK/APU/Pages/tablet.aspx#3

AMD Embedded G-Series Platform
http://www.amd.com/us/products/embedded/processors/Pages/g-series.aspx
http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/49282_G-Series_platform_brief.pdf

There are also eoma68 cards in the works using the AMD Fusion APU's that will only use open source firmware so you won't have to settle for EFI or a closed BIOS as you have to with Intel.

1ghz Dual-Core CPU with AMD Radeon HD 6250 GPU,
http://rhombus-tech.net./amd_g_series/

AMD APUs for Notebooks, Netbooks & Tablets
http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/NOTEBOOK/APU/Pages/tablet.aspx#3

AMD Embedded G-Series Platform
http://www.amd.com/us/products/embedded/processors/Pages/g-series.aspx
http://www.amd.com/us/Documents/49282_G-Series_platform_brief.pdf

Ummmmm yeah... no.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/hd-5970/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5970-overview.aspx

Before you start doing math, correct your numbers. That chip you are calling 8-core (...) correct your numbers unless you dont want to let facts get in the way of your inner banboy.

Oh, I let facts get in my way like that AMD is calling it an 8-core?

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today unleashed the AMD FX family of CPUs, delivering a fully unlocked and customizable experience for desktop PC users. The AMD FX series of desktop CPUs includes the first-ever eight-core desktop processor

There you have it, in their own damn press release. Besides it's not my math, there's no other way to interpret "They could have built something that achieved 90-100% of Intel's best on single threads instead of 60-80% [but] the performance per core * number of cores would be lower." than that he counts each module as two cores. If he didn't, the statement would be meaningless. And if one core is performing 60-80% of an Intel core then two cores (one module) should perform 120-160% for a well threaded application, which we all know it doesn't. Not if we take four modules and four Intel cores to make a FX-8150 and 2500K/2600K either. The truth is one Intel core outperforms one AMD module - or two cores as AMD likes to call it.

http://developer.amd.com/assets/TSC_Dual-Core_Utility.pdf
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2645594

Did you mean the 9100e, as in this link: http://www.starmicroinc.net/product/HD9100OBJ4BGD/-AMD-Phenom-X4-9100e-AM2-18GHZ-4MB-3200MHZ-HD9100OBJ4BGD-CPU-OEM/?

I mean this one:http://products.amd.com/pages/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=623
The 910e is a "Deneb" core. At 2.6 GHz, it is not that bad in performance, and the official TDP is half that of most standard AMD quad cores at the time I bought it (65 W vs. 125 W). You may get lucky with a standard chip that happens to be close to the 910e in power consumption, but that is not certain. Also, the new FX processors are a questionable upgrade over the Phenom II ;-)
Note 1)
In the meantime, the 1045T has appeared in shops. With 6 cores, 2.7 GHz and 95W TDP it looks very nice too, and today I'd be tempted to get that one instead of the 910e.
Note 2)
If Intel would support ECC RAM in their desktop chips, I might have bought an Intel Core i5-2400S instead. Same TDP in the specs and superior performance (even if Intel cheats a bit with the TDP, I'd consider the difference an acceptable tradeoff).

Considering the GPU, I wanted to keep things in the max. 70 W range. Not only because of power consumption, but also because of noise (70W can, in my experience, still be handled by a not too noisy air cooler).

At work I have a quad core Q6700 with 4GB of RAM. At home I use an older single core Athlon 64 3500+ with 2GB of RAM. Both machines run Windows XP.

Both machines run FF 3.6 because I keep reading that later versions have worse memory use and UI performance characteristics.

On both machines, I experience two problems with FF memory usage (all figures were reported as "private bytes" by Sysinternals process explorer):

1) Memory usage keeps growing until it reaches a threshold (1.5GB on my home machine) after which FF locks hard with close to 100% CPU use and never recovers. Closing tabs did not bring the memory usage down in a perceptible way.
This used to require daily restarts of FF but lately the problem does not seem to happen that often. A restart can still cut the memory use by half (same tabs courtesy of session restore), which helps with problem #2 below, but it takes much longer to go over 1GB.

2) Periodic "stuttering" where FF will pause for a short period every once in a while with CPU usage spikes approaching 100%. The duration of the pauses seem directly related to the amount of memory that FF uses. That, and the periodic nature of the "hiccups", lead me to believe it is related to garbage collection.
Unfortunately, it makes viewing videos when FF is running (even using an external viewer) impractical, so I have to close FF and start IE8 each time I go to youtube,
There's a bug report that was opened almost 3 years ago (and still unassigned).

The responses that I get are:

* You're using an old version.
True, but according to the comments, bug 490122 is still present in the newer versions (up to v10) and people say that 3.6 is more responsive (especially on older HW) than the newer versions.

* It's the plugins/addons/extensions.
Perhaps, but the reason I use FF at all is because of the extensions and I would expect such an "extension-centric" product to help me figure out which one is misbehaving (for example, by reporting the memory usage of each tab).

Now, reading the article and the slides, I am getting hopeful that these issues are being addressed.

> A non-intel laptop is going to take a long time to come up to speed once people realize there isn't a wealth of applications available.

Did AMD stop making chips, or just laptop ones? Hmm, neither apparently.

As far as emulators, everyone recalls the PC emulators available for the PPC Macs. They did work, but the system they were emulating was slow by standards of the time. You could in principle emulate any processor on any other processor - but would it be worthwhile?

Rosetta didn't suck too badly - it ran Quicken 2007 adequately on my MacBook Pro. ("Ran" because I dumped it in favor of Quicken Lite^WEssentials when Q2007 couldn't manage to avoid corrupting one of my credit card accounts.) Unlike the PC emulators, it didn't have to implement the raw hardware - it just had to run usermode code, and it translated system call arguments and results. Dunno how hard it'd be to translate x86 machine code to ARM machine code; if I remember correctly, ARM processors aren't guaranteed to support unaligned accesses, so sufficiently-safe translations of x86 memory-reference instructions might be complicated code sequences. (I'd look it up, but the fine folks at ARM have decided to make their instruction set architecture manuals only "available in [PDF versions] to registered ARM customers". Intel are a bit nicer, as are AMD.)

You mean like this?

First of all don't be pissy when someone is trying to help, I haven't messed with a 701 series in something like 3 years, so sue me if I forgot that was a last gen Celeron instead of a first gen Atom. Either way the chipset is still the same older Intel set which should work just fine under Linux.

As for Windows? Here's your XP drivers, you're welcome. the key to getting around the BS is simply find another unit with the same chipset that DOES have XP drivers and use those. you can also get one of the older versions of Driverpacks or simply go to TPB and download "Windows XP ultimate Driver DVD" which has ALL the major chipsets from EVERY OEM, which means they'll have either the Gateway or Compaq driver and frankly XP don't give a shit, finally another link here that gives a link and description for getting that chip going under XP. Merry Xmas.

Uhhh...that is where i got mine for my E-350 as well as the legacy Radeon (damn I can't think of the number, X200 maybe?) which was in the legacy section. And it also says right here on the AMD page graphics-notebook. But if you are truly having a hard time finding a driver feel free to list the make and model and i'll be happy to find them for you, or you can just go to Driverpacks and download the one that says "mobile' which has AMD, Intel, and Nvidia. i think it may have SiS as well, not sure.

It depends on the CPU. Some AMD ones shut down at 70C

Also, if you need water at 96C, then you have all of 4 to 9 degrees of safety margin before the CPU performs an emergency shutdown, or starts skipping clock cycles. That's a pretty complicated problem: you have to provide just enough cooling at the heat exchanger that the CPU temperature doesn't go over the maximum, while keeping it hot enough for coffee. But cooling effect takes time to affect the CPU, so you may not be able to react fast enough.

Also, you'll have even less margin than that, because heat will be lost from the piping and the area around the heatsink on the CPU, so you need a slightly higher CPU temperature to compensate for that.

AMD's attempt to mislead the non-techical, a la 'Get The Facts'.

Check out this marketing asshole.

An old version of the Wikipedia article points out the bullshit of their older 'Vision' nonsense:

Some of the divisions made in the classifications seem dubious. For example, the basic "Vision" should be capable of watching DVDs, while "Vision Premium" can "Convert CD to MP3s". But any general-purpose personal computer capable of playing a DVD is also perfectly capable of converting CD to MP3s. So adding "Convert CD to MP3s" to "Vision Premium" instead of "Vision" is purely for marketing, without basis in technical reality.[citation needed]

They're still full of shit - their "Help Me Choose" page would have me buy a mid-range machine to rip CDs, apparently more demanding than watching DVDs. To "be a productivity powerhouse", though, I'd really better shell out for the best.

It's a pity. I really want to like AMD - they're a much-needed underdog.

You don't have to worry about that, and you can thank your friends at AMD for it! AMD has announced they are going with Coreboot instead of UEFI which i'm sure many here will know is a completely free and open source BIOS replacement that is getting a lot of funding through AMD. This of course means MSFT won't be able to force Windows 8 to be secure boot only as that would keep every AMD CPU from running Win 8 and probably get them another round of antitrust for their trouble.

Personally it has just made me happier that I switched to become an AMD only shop. One of the things that REALLY pisses me off with OEM PCs is getting in there and finding the BIOS is so crippled and short on features it actually hampers the system, like with a customer I had recently that had to toss a stick of RAM simply because the BIOS had no feature to switch between dual and single mode and the board wouldn't read unmatched sticks. But for those of us that stick with AMD it'll mean if you get an OEM and Coreboot doesn't have what you need so what? You can roll your own and just flash the Coreboot with a different version, kinda like CyanogenMod.

Oh and MSFT really can't lock it down to where you can't switch OSes simply because all those fat software assurance and MSDN contracts wouldn't be worth shit. i know quite a few that have those contracts so they can run older versions for critical programs and if MSFT killed it there would go a LOT of SMBs and business is their bread and butter.

No most likely on first boot you'll get a "Did you know you don't have secureboot? Check yes if you wish to disable and absolve MSFT of any responsibility if you get a boot virus" and we'll all go "yes we know now STFU and get out of my face, stupid Windows" and go on about our daily lives, just as we do now.

Actually if you have been keeping up with events of late AMD has been selling so many chips that the only thing holding them back has been trouble from the manufacturing getting up to speed on the latest die shrink so I really doubt marketing when you are selling out of chips already is REALLY needed that much, do you?

I mean look at the AMD Brazos line, they have those things in everything from netbooks (here is the one I personally sold my MSI Wind for after picking up a few for customers, it hold 8Gb of RAM and is sweeeet, both on performance and battery life) to laptops like this one with B-Ray to cool HTPC designs to these really awesome all in ones which I found make pretty killer SOHO/small business and family PCs.

So actually I'd say AMD was on the right track when their CEO announced that they were slowing their desktop output to ramp up mobile chips to try to fill the demand. Frankly even if they hadn't had the problems with the supply chain I doubt seriously they'd be needing much in the way of advertising ATM. Right now with the economy down prices trumps just about everything and the bang per buck was in the AMD camp even before the APUs hit, now you have machines that'll play WoW and smooth HD video at frankly insanely cheap prices and get 6 hours on the battery for the mobiles and not heat up the house on the HTPC and all in one. Seems like a good combo to me.

Of course this isn't even bringing up the next "big thing" from the AMD camp which most of the number crunchers and programmers here ought to be drooling over and that is the switch from VLIW to vector in their APUs and GPUs which should bring floating point math a hell of a speed boost. Oh and for all you FOSS lovers out there AMD is switching to Coreboot so you'll have a system that can be open and modified from the BIOS layer on up.

I do have a question about TFA though....what was wrong with R600? Sure the 2xxx and 3xxx series didn't slaughter Nvidia but they also didn't crank the living hell out of the heat nor did they have the whole "bumpgate" issue Nvidia had at the time. Their IGP version of the 3xxx was also quite nice for HD video and the HD38xx was pretty sweet and was easy to crossfire. So while I wouldn't call it a second coming or Nvidia killer it certainly wasn't up to the level of the Nvidia 5xxx, aka the Hoover card fiasco.