Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) plans to use its channel to boost its business in the high-performance computer gaming market, and has rolled out several powerful graphics cards.
This is according to AMD SA channel sales manager, Jaco Laubscher, who points out that AMD has a 28% market share in the desktop CPU business. Going forward, he says AMD and its channel partners will focus their efforts on the graphics market.
Last week, AMD introduced the ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 edition graphics card, which it claims is the first graphics card capable of rendering in excess of one billion pixels per second. This is the latest technology roll-out following a series of graphics card releases by the company in recent months.
Eyefinity enables games to be seamlessly displayed across six screens. According to AMD, before this technology, game enthusiasts would need two or three graphics cards to simultaneously drive six computer monitors beyond 1080p HD resolutions.
“The South African gaming market as a whole is a very healthy,” notes Laubscher. The gaming industry is traditionally associated with an early adopters market and as such gamers love new technology. For AMD, this industry is directly aligned with our price-versus-performance strategy.”
Without giving specific details, Laubscher says despite the economic downturn, sales have been picking up, predominately in the gaming market. He notes Microsoft's release of Windows 7 has also helped to boost sales in gaming machines because of its DirectX 11 support.
“AMD's strategy has always been around creating a realistic experience for gamers,” notes Laubscher. “We have partnered with LAN Games and are currently supporting several of their events locally.” He added that AMD is looking to sponsor teams and grow the gaming community.
AMD's direct competitor, Intel, indicated it also plans to invest in the local gaming market. Frans Pieterse, regional sales manager of Intel sub-Saharan Africa, says: “Our major push each year at Intel is via the Rage event, where we support key local players to showcase Intel-based gaming solutions, sponsor prizes for gaming events, and supply the server infrastructure for the 1 800-person local area network (LAN) to run off.
“We also support a few of the smaller, local LAN events in the country, like Frag in Durban and OC in Cape Town.”
Intel refused to comment on the market share it controls in comparison with AMD.
Intel's drive into the high-performance gaming foray is its Core i7-980X Processor Extreme Edition, codenamed Gulftown, which was rolled out in the first quarter of this year. It is a six-core hyperthreaded processor that is capable of running up to 12 threads.
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