QUOTE AMD HAS done it again, and stunned the technical community with their power consumption figures. Yes, in the release of the updated power supply data sheets late last week, there was a shocking surprise, nothing. Those sheets were woefully inadequate by any account, and AMD trumpeting the fact that they are now updated is a bit short of shameful, but only because I presume no one was injured in their making.
They list the magic number, 89w, for all K8 based chips except for the mobile parts, which are all listed at a lower figure, but the same one for all clock grades. Come on AMD, how dumb do you think we are?
I have a particular beef with this stupidity for two reasons, first I have been bitching about this to you for months now, every engineer I have talked to since the Opteron launch has gotten the speech. Some have gotten it so many times that they roll their eyes at the thought. Two weeks ago, I watched an AMD PR person take notes while I bitched at an engineer, and afterwards, we all pleasantly commented on how stupid it was.
Now I don't expect you to change your entire documentation strategy simply to please me, that would be the one thing I can think of that would be dumber than the current course of action. Do it for yourself, it will only benefit you.
I was at a large Tier Two vendor last week, someone who moves thousands and thousands of your boxes a month. They didn't have the #*&#^$ NDA data sheet that has the power consumption numbers on them! Who is served by this? What gain do you get when the people designing things around your products can't do their job right?
The part that is the funniest, in a Daffy Duck 'tis to laugh, har har' kind of way, is that it is a major competitive advantage that you are hiding. Your power consumption is much lower than the competition, and in early December, the gap will only widen. Is there some hidden reason why you don't get up on the rooftops and shout the numbers? I know the people who have the NDA sheet, which I have been strangely unable to find a copy of, are all almost giddy with the numbers it contains.
So here is my challenge to you at AMD Central, publish those numbers, or tell me why you won't. I promise I won't print anything about it if you have a valid reason, but I know you don't. There are no trade secrets to be lost here. Intel can measure the consumption much better than I ever can, and when I did it last week, it wasn't that hard. PDFs are not that expensive to disseminate.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11948' ">http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11948
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10/06/2003 07:59 PM
