AMD attacks integrated graphics market

AMD is launching a campaign to highlight the graphical superiority of its Live platform over Intel's Viiv.

Where AMD's processors were considered to be superior in terms of performance and performance per watt to those developed by Intel in recent years, Intel has stolen that crown back over the past six months. This is forcing AMD to concentrate on areas where it believes it still has an advantage.

With 60 per cent of the retail desktop market and 76 per cent of retail laptops sold with integrated graphics, it will publicise Live's claimed performance improvement in the run up to Microsoft Vista's launch.

During an AMD presentation, it compared its Live platform to Intel's Viiv platform in two otherwise identical HP systems - although the AMD system was £60 cheaper.

In Windows XP tests of the two systems, which we were able to alter, Live's Geforce 6150 integrated graphics ran twice as many frames per second in Far Cry when compared to Intel's latest GMA3000 graphics chipset. It also ran Lego Star Wars with 4x Anti-Aliasing and The Sims with pixel shader 2, which the GMA3000 could not.

AMD claims Intel's upcoming GMA X3000 graphics chipset will still not be as fast as current Live chipsets.

Chris Aarons, manager of CPG Communications at AMD, claimed that an "uber experience" in Vista does not need "uber hardware", saying that the operating system's high-end Aero would run fine using AMD's Live platform with integrated graphics.

But AMD would not demonstrate this during the presentation, claiming Intel drivers were too poor to draw a fair comparison.

Aarons slammed Intel and claimed Microsoft also has reservations, saying: " Microsoft is concerned that someone might buy a Viiv box and not get a good Vista experience."

When asked if AMD were drawing attention to graphics chipsets because it had lost the performance crown Leslie Sobon, director of product and brand management at AMD, replied: "How do you define performance?" She added: "All benchmarks are subjective", clearly missing the irony of AMD's claims during its presentation. 

Another less significant area AMD is pushing is Live's wireless performance. It claims 40 per cent faster 802.11g speeds when using a Live-branded chipset compared with Centrino-branded wireless. However, this figure came from AMD, not independent, tests.

AMD's Live platform is the same concept as Intel's Viiv and Centrino branding. The campaigns have matured since the early days when Dell let consumers add a Viiv sticker to its desktops for £5.88.