AMD diverts resources from the Quad FX platform development the same year it promises Quad FX is the enthusiast future
AMD excited many technology enthusiasts last year when it introduced the Quad FX platform. AMD representatives touted this platform as the next big thing from AMD.
AMD apparently talked up its Quad FX enthusiast platform so well that Intel decided to roll out a competing product in its unreleased Skulltrail platform. When the Quad FX platform first hit market in January of 2007 it seemed doomed from the start to many with steep price premiums for the mainboards and the processors. These price premiums led to the lethargic adoption of the platform.
According to The Tech Report AMD representative Suzy Pruitt commented on the future of Quad FX. “The short answer is that while there are still engineering resources focused on future platform offerings that build off Quad FX, the current energy and effort has gone into programs and product initiatives like Spider and AMD has discontinued future planning and development of its eight-core enthusiast platform at this time.”
Pruitt continued, “We will continue to support customers that have an existing Quad FX with DSDC and are also working on an upgrade path for those customers. While AMD is not actively promoting AMD Opteron processor as a 2P enthusiast solution, we recognized that there are enthusiasts who are looking for two-socket solutions and think an Opteron platform is well-suited to meet that demand at this time.”
After all the promises ad statements by AMD that Quad FX was the companies enthusiast future, AMD has apparently decided to all but kill the platform off. The few enthusiasts who plunked down the big dollars required to adopt the platform should be feeling a bit uncomfortable right now.
AMD promises to continue support for the platform. However, AMD also promised the platform was the future and the company has all but killed it off the same year. The best Quad FX owners can look forward to is an upgrade to Opteron processors that work with the Quad FX mainboards.
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