AMD Announces Project Quantum

[btarunr]

AMD announced Project Quantum, what it claims to be the most powerful small form-factor gaming PC. About the size of a gaming console, and designed entirely by AMD, using AMD components, this machine packs two AMD "Fiji" graphics processors, with 8 GB of graphics memory, set in CrossFire, and an AMD 64-bit x86 machine. All hot components are liquid-cooled. The desktop will be marketed by AMD AIB partners, and will offer 60 FPS on any game at 4K resolution. Leveraging Windows 10 and DirectX 12, the machine will ship out a little later this year. More details soon.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[human_error]

and will offer 60 FPS on any game at 4K resolution

That's a bold statement to make - any game at 4k with 60fps. Though I suppose they don't say at what quality settings..

 

[Rowsol]

That's a bold statement to make - any game at 4k with 60fps. Though I suppose they don't say at what quality settings..

To be fair, at that res you don't need much CPU power.

This looks sweet.

 

[Basard]

Sweet...

 

[xfia]

epic! total surprise for the gaming masses. nvidia who? haha

 

[GhostRyder]

Its all been leading to this, all these random AMD branded components have been leading to this moment. Question is will it perform?

 

[ZoneDymo]

colour me interested

 

[RealNeil]

I'll check it out,.................

 

[Steevo]

This is what the Steam machine should have been.

 

[Darller]

This is probably the only way AMD can get my money at this point, but what a way to do it!

 

[Octopuss]

Interesting idea. They need well selling product pretty badly, so good luck there AMD.

 

[ZoneDymo]

This is what the Steam machine should have been.

Steam machines (unfortunatly) dont have one config.
Get a gamepad and install the Steam OS on this and you got a steam machine

 

[xfia]

This is probably the only way AMD can get my money at this point, but what a way to do it!

if i had 100k i would buy in now.. great 5-10 year outlook especially if the laptop gpu's in the works put up a nice fight against nv.

 

[Joss]

This is not what a chip designer/maker should be doing. Instead of focusing on their business they come up with distractions.
I'm ready to eat my shoes, but I doubt the final (Fiji based) cards will be earth-shattering.

 

[xfia]

This is not what a chip designer/maker should be doing. Instead of focusing on their business they come up with distractions.
I'm ready to eat my shoes, but I doubt the final (Fiji based) cards will be earth-shattering.

if anything its a show of what they are able to do for people in smaller form factors. maybe a billion profit or nothing but not wasted effort.

 

[HalfAHertz]

Is that an intel CPU?

 

[cadaveca]

This is not what a chip designer/maker should be doing. Instead of focusing on their business they come up with distractions.
I'm ready to eat my shoes, but I doubt the final (Fiji based) cards will be earth-shattering.

They aren't a chip designer/maker. They are an "asset-light" tech engineering company. That means the only thing they produce, really, is intellectual property, and their model says that holding "goods" that depreciate is bad business. They have many partners that they work with to bring those designs into a reality, but the production of all parts is out-sourced 100%, and hence, AMD is limited in their capabilities as dictated by the market. They have time to kill, and a lot of background in entertainment console-based design.

Its all been leading to this, all these random AMD branded components have been leading to this moment. Question is will it perform?

OF course it will. But all those AMD-branded components are really a way to offset development costs, and are not made by AMD directly, merely carry AMD branding.

Is that an intel CPU?

Meh. AMD technology exists in every single x64-capable Intel CPU. What's your point?

 

[xenocide]

If this thing really had an FX-8350 (or whatever 8 core CPU they throw in there) I'm certain it would bottleneck like crazy. Unless they plan on launching this officially with Zen, which would be pretty interesting (it's a bold move Cotton, lets see how it plays out).

 

[Xzibit]

 

[xfia]

If this thing really had an FX-8350 (or whatever 8 core CPU they throw in there) I'm certain it would bottleneck like crazy. Unless they plan on launching this officially with Zen, which would be pretty interesting (it's a bold move Cotton, lets see how it plays out).

bottleneck is so largely misunderstood and you are just.. way off.
first of all im sure it has a much more efficient 28nm cpu that is practically a light year ahead of the 8350 at this point.
yeah no rendering lesson and more efficient resource usage overtime stuff from me but if you notice it is marketed with dx12.

 

[xenocide]

bottleneck is so largely misunderstood and you are just.. way off. first of all im sure it has a much more efficient 28nm cpu that is practically a light year ahead of the 8350 at this point.

Assuming AMD is using hardware they have internally we are stuck with Piledriver Cores which aren't exactly performance titans. Not to mention the only modern chipset they have is 990FX which doesn't even support PCI-express 3.0 natively. But even if they aren't talking about an FX-83xx CPU, what is this "cpu that is practically a light year ahead"? They don't have any new CPUs in the HEDT segment, unless they are referring to Zen, which they are planning on rolling out in the future.

The alternative is they use Intel i7's which are technically "practically a light year ahead" of AMD's offerings.

 

[HalfAHertz]

Not saying that having an Intel CPU in there is a bad thing, but it's a bit unexpected. As others have mentioned you don't need much CPU at high resolutions. Couldn't have they used one of those swanky new APUs with PCI-E 3.0 instead?

 

[xfia]

yeah and fm2+ is actually more advanced in a few regards supporting 3.0 and how they moved things around for it and better memory controller. sadly the memory controller that exists on am3+ and fx cpu's is weak in comparison and was originally tested with ddr2..

 

[ValenOne]

This is not what a chip designer/maker should be doing. Instead of focusing on their business they come up with distractions.
I'm ready to eat my shoes, but I doubt the final (Fiji based) cards will be earth-shattering.

Intel also offers reference form factors for it's OEMs and ODMs.

 

[Aibohphobia]

It's an Intel CPU in there. They're using the ASRock Z97E-ITX/AC: