5 posts tagged “amd”
I'm not a gamer. I don't have a custom built machine at home, though the urge is getting stronger and stronger. But these vids are kinda cool. If you're an uber gamer with a little cash, part of what you do at home is overclock your processor, and system in general, for more frames per second and a higher quality, more seamless visual experience. You also void your warranty (because you're running your processor faster than factory specs, it's also running hotter and could possibly burn out--unless you can cool it down--with mineral oil, liquid nitrogen, liquid helium, etc. you can do some cool stuff...unless you then freeze, literally, your processor), but so it goes. Me, I'll probably never overclock by much because the investor in me would cry if I burned out my brand new processor. Maybe I should try it on the boy's machine first? Hmmmm.
Anyway, these vids are what happen when you're serious about a hobby and passion, have a reputation as a pioneer or god in a given field for a given audience, and you team up with a 'dealer' who gives you damn near unlimited access to your 'fix'--in this case, motherboards, graphics cards, and processors, namely the AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core processor. Of course, the tradeoff is the marketing value the man gets out of you, your name, and your work, but I suppose it's worth it.
[Yes, I work for the man, and yes, part of my responsibility was to get these posted to the site, but I'm just linking here because I think they're cool vids. Trust me, there are like 40 other videos I've never mentioned.]
High Def versions are here. I highly recommend them, but if you don't have time, then check out the youtube ones on the corp channel below. (The 2nd one's cooler in my opinion, but the first one sets it all up.)
The Good
My cousin Justin--who I was helping with his college applications--has
let me know that while he's still waiting to hear from most of the
private schools, he's been accepted to U.T. Austin, to Cal State
Fullerton, and to St. Mary's in San Antonio. So at the very least he
has some options that he can also afford, particularly U.T. and St.
Mary's--the latter has already awarded him some scholarship funds. I
think U.T.'s the better choice, however, money wise. So even if his
folks have a major financial disruption--and that's definitely a
possibility as his pop works for CitiCorp--the kid can breathe a little
more easily now.
The Bad
Easy come, easy go. AMD just announced a reduction in force and paycuts
across the board. It's not explicitly stated that outsource-ers are
involved...but if so, I'll be experiencing a 5% pay cut..and let's hope nothing worse. And all my
co-workers who just--and I mean, JUST, like right before
Christmas--moved over to AMD from contract positions will be
experiencing a 10% paycut. Ouch, ouch, and ouch. Guess I'll be keeping
that retail job after all...provided they don't let me go as part of
their own reductions. Macy's is closing stores and reducing force too.
So, how's your weekend shaping up?
Ok, not really. I'm just the lead project manager for the web launch. See here and here.
If you take a look at the reviews and specs, you'll get a good idea of the detailed reasons to buy AMD processors and products instead of others--sexiest of all is that they burn cooler and quieter in general than the competition, and in the case of this particular processor are less expensive for the same or better level of performance.
But also, and perhaps most importantly, AMD's the non Wal-Mart of the computer world. If you don't shop at Wal-Mart because of political, social, moral convictions, then you should likely shop AMD for the same ones. AMD's the little guy. Without it, there's no competition for the big guys and they get to charge you--and their business partners--whatever they like. Sometimes that may mean a smaller price for you...but a tiny profit margin or extremely restrictive terms for their partners, which limits competition and makes profitability and maintaining employment numbers harder for them.
So buy AMD already.
Step 1: Trade your 16-year-old 15 MPG vehicle in for a relatively green ride and a car note. (Also register for 'go green' parking at work and laugh at all the schmucks in F-150s who have to park on the 3rd floor.)
Step 2: Suck it up and get a 2nd job. Preferably one with flexible hours and discounts that will help out during the holidays, but will also help you pay your student loans and the new car note.
Step 3: Disregard the dangerous trend of low commercial demand that is responsible for the recent drop in gas prices and just be grateful that $20 bought you more than half a tank.
Step 4: Read up on the nice things others have to say about the company you work for and consider that the people at the helm might know what they're doing after all. (I said 'might'!)
Step 5: Remember your grandmother had it much worse. There but for the grace go you...
And this time I have the good fortune of joining the party--for the first time, and for all three days no less. True, sacrifices have had to be made--it looks like I could have been going on really amazing trip this weekend after all--but I'm really psyched to be heading to ACL (and I hope a certain someone will be patient and understanding about that), especially since my brother, the musician and ultimate music fan, will be coming in from Nashville. It's the first time he's stayed with me since my graduation which was also right after my ex jumped ship. Needless to say this weekend will be different and better in infinite ways.
And for an extra point of interest, I've had a hand in one little piece of online corporate propaganda that just launched tonight. Wanna' see?
http://www.amd.com/us/fusion/pages/ACL-Festival.aspx
I was but the lowly project manager (she says self-deprecatingly) on this, but we turned it around in lightning time and all things considered, it's pretty cool. It's part of the larger corporate rebranding campaign, The Future is Fusion, that I've been working on too, but more on that some other time.
For now, it's all about Austin and ACL. The festival website's been taken over and you can see live webcasts, realtime blogging, etc. and hear a streaming, all-ACL artists radio station, which I'm listening to right now. So join in the fun as best as you can and if you're around town, but not splurging for tickets, just hit the regular music scene and you're sure to see the beautiful people out and about.
Time to shower the funk of the work week off of me and prep for the weekend. I'm going to borrow one of the boy's Pyramid Hefeweizen and kick the weekend off to a great start.
