Et tu, VooDoo?

This is the new saying as 2006 starts. Yes VooDooPC has answered the FX clarion call and the new FX60 from AMD has finally gotten the attention the line has deserved since 2003\4. On his bog the founder is extolling the virtues of the AMD architecture and is talking loud about a new AMD-based VooDoo laptop that will, be the fastest thing out, hands down...

...and shortly VoodooPC will be launching the world's fastest notebook - no question, uncontested, no one will touch it. Guess what processor it's running?

Et Tu VooDoo?

Several Intel supporters visited his blog and made some scathing comments which were quickly dismissed as the inherent superiority of the FX60 has taken the performance world AND the multitasking world by storm. Clocked at 2.6GHz and packed with two cores of DirectConnect goodness, the FX60 is nearly on par with the FX57, it's single core brother clocked 200MHz faster. Of ocurse, when it comes to multi-tasking the 57 is blown away by the 60 as the X24400 and above are starting to show their usefulness in real world scenarios where people actually have Flash-ridden Firfox tabs running in the background while they churn out Doom 3 frames or build their latest ASP.Net module.
I personally can't believe that VooDoo has finally started to take AMD seriously. Now all AMD needs is a Tier1 who builds for application developers who need more RAM and less graphics support. The 6150\430 from NVidia has finally provided a "more than good enough" on board graphics solution with support for 4+ GB of RAM, so devs can now actually develop for platforms using the SAME AMOUNT OF RAM and SATAII actualy provides enough HD bandwidth to mimic a real world web server. After all most companies are still using non-EMT64 Xeons. One FX60 with 8 GB RAM could "Virtually" replace 5-10 of these machines.
Dell really needs ot get with the program. Recent Virtual Server tests (www.anandtech.com) show that Dual Core AMD chips are able to keep their performance (relatively) up to 8 virtual sessions using VMWare ESX. The 955 is doing well but with Pacifica and DDR2 coming soon, Dell with be drowning in the deep end with Tier1s like Monarch building 4 proc monsters with AMD. Even AlienWare has now picked up on the "Good News" and is offering a full suite of FX and Opteron boxes. George Lucas realizes their potential as the "beautifully- FX'd" Revenge Of the Sith was created with Opteron farms.
2006 is indeed looking like a good year for AMD even without Intel's anti-trust issues and nuclear-powered Dimensions. It will be even better if ANY major brand; HP, Lenovo, Gateway, or even heaven forbid Dell begins a real push to get AMD to the masses where they belong.
As a disclaimer, I can say that I have owned several Intel-based systems back when Via was the only "real" chipset choice for Athlons and AthlonXPs. Intel has simply dropped the ball and in my opinion used despicable tactics to keep AMD64 out of the boxes of major corporate manufacturers.

I guess now the other shoe has dropped.