Phenom and 790FX to surface in AMD's channel first

AMD IS TO deliver Phenom processors 770/790X/790FX to the channel first, as a sort of pay-back for Q4 of 2006 when it favoured new-found friend, Dell.

So you can expect Phenoms selling on e-tail websites and in retail shops first, followed by tier one customers like Dell, HP, Acer and so on.

The channel business got stuffed last year when AMD went ga-ga and pulled around two million CPUs in order to keep Dell happy.

What happened in the meantime is that AMD launched a channel-only line of products, the 6400+ Black Edition, followed by 5000+ Black Edition.

Richard Baker, AMD's channel chief in EMEA, told us how the channel is now prospering in the EMEA region, especially in a lot of emerging markets.

The top-tier PC makers don't like to enter big time, until the market is largely developed. The consumer segment is also low on the list. Rather, the channel is filled with small companies that are able to target consumers in a way tier ones just can't.

Baker said the Athlon Black Edition is only the start of a revamping of AMD's channel approach. The company is now running another promotion that is gives buyers personalised business cards (AMD Unleash) when you buy AMD Athlon and Radeon HD combo.

When it comes to a Phenom Black Edition, Richard declined to comment, since regular Phenoms weren't even launched yet. However, these are going to be launched in channel first, which was a surprise to us.

As it stands right now, by end of 2007, AMD expects to ship half a million RV670-based graphics cards and several hundred thousand Phenom processors.

All in all, 2008 looks like being a year for affordable multi-core, multi-GPU systems.

With quad-core processors and decent graphics cards costing significantly less than 200 EUR, perhaps publishers might start allowing game developers to create DX10 native engines. µ