AMD GAME! got game

AMD may not currently be capable of besting Intel in the market, but hey, why not start up another marketing program to kickstart sales? LIVE! gives way to GAME!, which is an AMD-run certification for classifying premium PC gaming rigs. What constitutes a GAME! PC? Why, AMD-based machine featuring a Phenom, Turion Ultra, or Athlon CPU, and ATI Radeon HD 3000 series graphics. Users can expect GAME! systems immediately or in short order from bigger direct-order names like Alienware and Velocity Micro, as well as from other smaller bandwagon-jumpers.

[helloUser @ May 19th 2008 1:12AM]

this makes thing more confusing for me actually.

[cough @ May 19th 2008 1:16AM]

I stopped understanding stuff years ago.

On other news, GAME! got really ANNOYING! really FAST!.

[gad get @ May 19th 2008 1:17AM]

GAME! It can play GAMES! Where's the confusion here, you horse-pinata?

[Ace b @ May 19th 2008 1:18AM]

But is it GAME! enough to play Crysis?

[gad get @ May 19th 2008 1:18AM]

Oh by the way, how does one change his avatar around here?!

[Tony Rayo @ May 19th 2008 1:57AM]

Click on your name and it will take you to your profile page. If you are logged in you can change avatar and other settings there.

[Blackstar @ May 19th 2008 2:14AM]

Why does the logo look like the glossy black and silver one Intel uses?

[LondonConsultant @ May 19th 2008 5:28AM]

I'm looking to buy a PC for work use, but am unsure which ones are suitable. I wish they had a BUSINESS! certification logo to help me...

[Ryan @ May 20th 2008 1:44AM]

This is a pretty good write up on the idea of it, explaining what they are TRYING to do:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=560

In the end, it looks like a flub that should be an industry-wide initiative not an AMD-only one.

[Bill @ May 19th 2008 1:24AM]

AMD GAME! = AMD LAME!

AMD, I luv ya, but you need to get your act together business-wise. Cheap marketing stunts will not save you if you can no longer delivery innovative products.

[Dan @ May 19th 2008 2:43AM]

It's not delivery,
It's Digiorno.

:]

[Ace b @ May 19th 2008 2:48AM]

dude,that pizza is good,but ya gotta love those personal pizza's from Red Barron

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ May 19th 2008 8:01AM]

> Cheap marketing stunts [...]

Well everything needs a name.

Intel/nVidia don't market anything like that, but have internally similar monikers for their product line ups.

> [...] will not save you if you can no longer delivery innovative products.

Seconded. Somehow I get the feeling that like VIA AMD with all the production troubles is going into underdog mode... :|

[Striker @ May 19th 2008 1:33AM]

I wonder what happens when you submit a Skulltrail with four 9600 GX2 cards in SLi with at least 4GB of RAM. Let me guess: After reviewing your system's specifications, we were not able to give it a AMD GAME! Certification. To gain certification, try upgrading to parts like these: Phenom, Turion Ultra, or Athlon CPU and ATI Radeon HD 3000 series GPUs.

[LC @ May 19th 2008 2:27AM]

No such thing as a 9600GX2. However, there is a 9800GX2. :P

Also, you can't have four 9800GX2s in SLI, only two. Unless you have, what? Eight monitors to hook up those cards to, for multiple displays without SLI.

[Kurian @ May 19th 2008 1:37AM]

Lol. As of now AMD sucks. Core 2 totally pwns ANY AMD CPU.

[Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ May 19th 2008 8:04AM]

But not by price/performance ratio.

Intel does better CPUs. AMD does cheaper CPUs. Rule stands.

I'd say that situation hasn't changed much in the decade - despite AMD64 bubble. AMD is still catching up with Intel.

[Hooterman @ May 19th 2008 9:58AM]

AMD has to have cheaper CPU's, they can't hang with Intel any other way. Their prices are not by choice.

[Kurian @ May 19th 2008 10:43AM]

My last 2 comps had Athlons in them, because they were better at the time, for gaming and everything, but times have changed.

Trying to push something that utterly fails in gaming under the title GAME! is ridiculous. Anyone building a gaming PC spends a lot of money on quality components and expensive graphics cards. They are NOT going to buy a underperforming CPU just to save a few dollars. Especially when the competition is GREATLY faster.

[Tony Rayo @ May 19th 2008 1:56AM]

Reminds me a bit of Intel's VIIV... which didn't last long. I'm all for standardizations, but this seems more like marketing than anything else to me. I'll stick with Intel and NVIDA for now thx.

[DiscoCat5 @ May 19th 2008 2:12AM]

probably not too bad a move by them i think. because the issue facing man ynot so tech savvy pc buyers, buying a pc with their kids yapping that they wanna play gamesi in thier ears, they go to the store to buy a pc and ask the sleezy/cheesey/all of the above salesperson which they should buy, salesman grins from ear to ear and says this machine is "game!" certified, and they walk out happy customers. its not a bad idea,,,,,, is it anything to do with that platform thaT they were/had released awhile ago that if you bought compatible amd products you pc would run it or something?

[Rick @ May 19th 2008 7:57AM]

You should go to Best Buy, where the sales people are non-commission, and thus less sleazy/cheesy, and more likely to point you to the machine that will suit your needs, regardless of the silly marketing sticker on the box.

I'll have to add this to the list of "technologies" that bother me. Centrino (commonly mistaken for Celeron, which makes me laugh), viiv, and now Game!

[kal326 @ May 19th 2008 9:45AM]

@Rick
I nearly fell out of my seat laughing when I read that one

"You should go to Best Buy, where the sales people are non-commission, and thus less sleazy/cheesy, and more likely to point you to the machine that will suit your needs, regardless of the silly marketing sticker on the box."

Thanks for brightening my morning....

[Aprime @ May 19th 2008 2:13AM]

THE GAME!

[Taylor @ May 19th 2008 2:51AM]

Fuck, I lost it.

[Adrian @ May 19th 2008 7:58AM]

I Lost!

[TavisJohn @ May 19th 2008 2:46AM]

Oh great, another "brilliant" marketing scam like "Vista Ready" was...


Lawsuit over how GAME! did not deliver gaming preformance in 3......


2.......




1.......




NOW!

[Celanor @ May 19th 2008 3:00AM]

Your multitudes of comments are wasting my bandwidth...

[bebop @ May 19th 2008 3:23AM]

This is clearly all about the 780G. The HD3200 designated IGP qualifies, so they get "GAME!" certified logos on really cheap little 780G / X2 boxes, and Intel right now doesn't have an effective answer at that price point. Well-played.

[Mag13 @ May 19th 2008 3:26AM]

Can it boot Vista in 30 seconds?

[Oinquer @ May 19th 2008 9:53AM]

nooo its to game...it will take 2 hours to boot vista computer but will load games instantly...

[gad get @ May 19th 2008 5:36AM]

We can dream, can't we?

[BlowURmindBowel @ May 19th 2008 5:08AM]

But will it blend?

K, so there was only one Crysis joke so far, and I felt this thread hadn't yet had enough obligatory references yet...

Additionally based on the overall opinion of this new product I saw it fit to use a reference indicative of said product's destruction...

[Zorque @ May 19th 2008 5:54AM]

Considering it's an AMD, it might not be able to play Doom. Sorry, guys.

[Oinquer @ May 20th 2008 7:27AM]

@Zorque

get a life ......
Intel is in the lead its true..but between the AMD and the Intel i have...the 2 are pretty much the same in games....
just put a nice graphic card and good ram in it and it will behave well.

[Zorque @ May 20th 2008 7:56AM]

Maybe I'll get a life... if you'll stop using ellipses... so much....

I don't know what kind of processors you're running, but obviously they're not a Core 2 and whatever AMD has, because you'd notice the difference then.

[tekdroid @ May 19th 2008 5:05AM]

Seems like a sensible marketing move to me. Designate gaming rigs as being that. More common-sense marketing like this needed. Joe has money but is reluctant when confused.

[loosely_coupled @ May 19th 2008 6:00AM]

This is stupid, but it would be nice for an industry wide standardization for classifying PCs according to their gaming performance. Think about how wide the disparity is between intel's integrated graphics and even a mid-end part like an nVidia 9600GT or ATI 3870. How would parents even have a clue as to what to buy for their family's desktop PC?
Even a simple 3-level system would work.

[John @ May 19th 2008 6:06AM]

i don't know man, but the all caps logo and that sweet exclamation point at the end just make me feel like lifting weights and crushing beer cans on my head. AWESOME!

[Jack @ May 19th 2008 6:57AM]

this GAME! cetification was introduced so that people can establish if thier new PC can play doom, simple as that

"can it play doom?"
"yes, it has a GAME! sticker"

[dan2600 @ May 19th 2008 8:06AM]

I just hope it comes with a demo of "Buttons for DOS"

[Galley @ May 19th 2008 8:02AM]

I remember when AMD was kicking ass and taking names. What the hell happened?

[Zorque @ May 20th 2008 8:06AM]

It wasn't anything that happened to AMD so much as it was something that happened to Intel. The Pentium 4 was a really bad architecture, and although it had some good features that are finding their way into Nehalem, it was still an awful design. It had a bad workload-per-clock-cycle ratio, poor power management and high consumption, ran extremely hot (every P4 system I've had has raised the temperature of the room at least 10 degrees), and even with multithreading generally underperformed. It was so bad that for a little while, they nearly back to the Pentium 3 core, until the ~1GHz mark which it just couldn't pass.

AMD only was successful because of Intel's failure at the time, and AMD's only fallen behind because Intel got their act together and designed a solid platform. Core 2 could still improve, too, which is exactly where Intel's going with Nehalem.

[TheCow5 @ May 19th 2008 8:29AM]

I was thinking the same as TavisJohn, it could go the way of Vista ready PC. I do understand why they are trying to do this but two things must also be added to make this work.

One being the AMD Game tag alone is not enough, you must add a Number or a letter to it such as AMD Game B or AMD Game C, then you must also get the game makers to add a letter on the games. This will allow you to know which games can play on which box.

We all know you can never run Crysis on AMD Game certified box with the letter B, C, or D.

[g3n3tix @ May 19th 2008 10:42AM]

3D NOW !
GAME!
LIVE!

[ugg.tryptophan @ May 19th 2008 1:28PM]

I'll get this if it doenst cost too much, because intel is ruining Weblogs Inc. with their BSOD ads! (down with the Black Screen Of Death ads!)

[Laughing Man @ May 19th 2008 8:50PM]

I love AMD I do, but when did they hire Chad Warden. AMD if you know where that idiot is, KILL HIM. Hire me to create random point distractions.

[Alan @ May 19th 2008 9:12PM]

Question, I am getting to build a new rig. I was going to go with AMD Black edition. I was told the Intel Quad only had 2 pipelines? Is this true? I was going with AMD anyways becuase I am a fan and have saved up a lot so I am going all the way with a high end AMD/ATI system. My friend just got a ATI HD 3870. We ran bioshock on a single core P4 with HT and 3 gigs of ram. We turned all settings to max on got sick frame rate. I was impressed with the ATI card. (I used to be an Nvidia person till 2 days ago) What do you all think?

[Smokey89 @ May 22nd 2008 10:51AM]

I just finnished building a PC using AMD 3000+ and a Radeon HD 2900 series graphics card - its just a wee bit slower than these GAME machines but boy does it run fast ( I had it on VISTA for a bit but it totally ruined its performance - XP is best games compatability anyway)

AMD may be slower than Intel just now but it is much more stable and reliable - fewer system crashes etc. plus the AMD cool+ quiet driver makes a nice difference