AMD Spider targets high-end gamers

AMD's Spider incorporates up to four ATI Radeon HD 3800 graphics cards

AMD has unveiled a new platform designed for high-end consumers and serious gamers.

Spider incorporates AMD's Phenom processor, seven-series chipset and up to four high-end ATI Radeon HD 3800 graphics cards.

AMD claims that the result is "the most sophisticated multi-GPU enthusiast platform ever".

The platform allows motherboard and system manufacturers to combine processor, chipset and cards on a board and maintain an adequate level of cooling.

AMD said that this has made it easier for system builders to construct a reliable high-end system with its components.

Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64, said that the graphics capacity of the platform is especially impressive.

"As far as I know, this is the only off-the-shelf platform that can accommodate four PCI graphics cards," he told vnunet.com.

Brookwood explained that Windows Vista normally supports just two graphics cards. ATI, however, has been able to configure its drivers to reliably run four cards on the operating system.

The analyst noted that the ability to easily integrate four cards could give AMD an advantage over Intel.

While Intel maintains an advantage in clock speed, the extra graphics power will satisfy the needs of all but the most demanding users, according to Brookwood.

However, Intel remains ahead for serious gamers who pay close attention to clock speeds.

"Intel still has an advantage on the classic compute-intensive games," said Brookwood. "If AMD really wants to beat Intel in benchmarks, it has its work cut out."