Game Changing. This was the mantra at AMD's recent launch event in Oakland, CA. At first we thought we were the only ones with déjà-vu; looking around we saw a couple of other mildly puzzled faces, as we recollected the launch of the AMD ATi Radeon 4000 series. 

The similarities were not unnoticed by AMD's PR staff either - it was a purposeful recollection of last year's launch, building to a new crescendo of expectation. Numbers are thrown around, including greater than 2 billion transistors and more than 2.5 teraflops of performance. Things are heating up.

Eric Demers, AMD GPG CTO

Calming things down a little, AMD's Chief Marketing Officer, Nigel Dessau, began speak about today's consumers, their needs and their uses of PC's in their homes.

"Today's consumer cares about what they can do with their PC, not what's inside. They want a rich HD and entertainment experience on their PC, delivered by the combined technology of AMD CPUs and GPUs, without having to understand what gigahertz and gigabytes mean. VISION technology from AMD reflects the maturation of marketing in the PC processing industry and communicates the technology in a more meaningful way."

In real terms this means the launch of a new branding for AMD PCs, based on the VISION moniker. Four levels of what AMD terms 'increasingly rich PC system capabilities' will be denoted by the VISION Basic, VISION Premium, VISION Ultimate and VISION Black logos affixed to PCs.

AMD's stated goal with their new technology and VISION is to fundamentally change the PC experience. Industry analysis shows that despite the global economic downturn, PC sales have remained solid. People buying PCs are doing so with it being at the center of the entertainment experience - for movies, for photos, for TV, for gaming, for communicating around the world.

Listening to the presentation the message appeared to be one of simplicity for the consumer - a focus on their needs rather than the price points and margins OEMs want to deliver. The AMD VISION branding allows the consumer to decide the level of equipment they desire, and then gives them choice in the retail space to choose the manufacturer or bundled extras they like.

Boarding the USS Hornet