As it turned out, Nvidia/ATi were not the only guilty parties in the whole case, but Windows Vista was implicated, too. Microsoft just posted an update for both 32- and 64-bit versions, fixing issues where operating system would not pass instructions for the 2nd GPU to the driver, meaning SLI/CrossFire would effectively work as a single chip cards.

Our review unit had an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ at its heart, and while the chip is approaching venerability, it's by no means slow. It's still dual-core, with both processors running at 2GHz. But blink and you'll miss this particular SKU (s3040.uk) - it will be replaced in August by the s3140.uk, which, according to HP, will cost the same but use a slightly faster Athlon 64 X2 4400+ processor and Nvidia GeForce 7500 LE graphics card. The rest of the specifications remain the same, including the strong software bundle of Works 8 and Roxio Creator.

Alienware's new Hangar 18 HD HTPC was also on display, connected to a large Toshiba TV, ATI's OCUR TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner, and a Hewlett Packard MediaSmart Server. Like the Acer machine, the Hangar 18 HD was also powered by an AMD processor / NVIDIA chipset combo. The CPU was a 65W Athlon 64 X2 dual-core and the chipset features integrated GeForce graphics with HDMI output. The back of the system housed a number of inputs and outputs to facilitate the connection to virtually any home theater setup. And the system is virtually silent. You can also catch a glimpse of the back of a HP MediaSmart Server in lower right of the picture of the outputs on the Hangar 18. That little machine, which is about the size of small shoebox, also features an AMD processor, and both feature AMD Live! software. AMD was also quick to point out that all of the televisions in the room (hooked up to the HTPCs, an XBox 360, and a UVD machine) feature ATI Xilleon or NXT products as well.

According to preliminary iSuppli estimates, AMD in the second quarter of 2007 accounted for 11.4% of worldwide processor sales, up 0.5% from 10.9% in the first quarter. This rise brought to an end a period of decline for AMD that saw its market share dwindle by nearly six points from 16.8% in the third quarter of 2006 to 10.9% in the first quarter of 2007.

According to our sources, AMD has understood the error of its ways and future processor sockets will be interoperable, at least in the upgrade scheme of things. Owners of Socket AM2 and AM2+ motherboards should have no problems fitting not just current and future K10 quad-core and dual-core processors known as Agena (Phenom X4 GP-7000), Kuma (Phenom X2 GS/GE-6000) and Rana (Athlon X2 BE/LS-2000), but you will also be able to fit 45nm Deneb/Propus/Regor cores from the future (H2'08) that support both DDR2 and DDR3 memory.

Whether AMD chooses to farm out certain aspects of its chip production to partners, as Texas Instruments (TXN - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) has successfully done, or even go completely fabless, as some analysts have speculated, remains to be seen.

AMD operates a pair of fabs in Dresden, Germany, and has an option to build a third fab in Saratoga, N.Y. In order to collect some $650 million in subsidies and incentives offered by the state of New York, AMD must begin construction sometime between July 1, 2007, and July 1, 2009.

Is there any way for AMD to fight back? In actual fact, currently, the price/performance gap between Intel and AMD products is not huge. However, with Intel about to transition to 45nm process manufacturing, which will net further cost reductions, along with the imminent launch of its next-generation microarchitecture, AMD will not be able to win with further price cuts.

They go on to predict more AMD layoffs.

Doug Grose, senior vice president for technology development, manufacturing and supply chain at AMD, took the company's founder to task by offering a caveat to Jerry Sanders' infamous stand from the 1980s, in which Sanders declared: "Real men have fabs." Grose added: "Real men have partners as well."

Meanwhile, Intel's Paolo Gargini sounded off on the feats of 60 years of achievements in the semiconductor industry and offered five lessons from that history summed up as the common belief that "Everything that had to be invented has been invented in the last 30 years." But to think it was an easy ride "is a mistake," he said.

"We are proud to be lead sponsors of Dare ProtoPlay because it is the ideal showcase of innovative video games, made by the next generation of designers," said Dave Everitt, European product and platforms manager at AMD. We have long supported the enthusiast market and are fully behind a competition that will help to advance video game design, and allow enthusiasts to have the chance to develop their skills in an exciting environment."

The channel appears to love Intel, according to Otellini, which probably isn't very good news for AMD, because he said later that his perception was his competition has more inventory hanging around in the channel than his firm has.

Said Mr Channel had a good quarter and Otellini's channel customers tell him they're making "very good margins" on our products. Intel will show off parallel processing based on Silverthorn and Larrabee cores soon enough.

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION said it's all right for Germany to lend AMD �262 million to help it brings its Dresden fab up to scratch.

Active TV is not a product or a platform. It's an AMD-led marketing effort, also backed by web video services, hardware manufacturers, and middleware makers. But there's something to be said for it.

Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. reports second-quarter earnings on Thursday. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst opinion related to the period.

OVERVIEW: Last year was challenging for Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (nyse: AMD - news - people ), which became embroiled in a vicious price war with larger rival Intel Corp. (nasdaq: INTC - news - people ) At the same time, the semiconductor industry was hurt by an inventory glut, which also helped drive prices down.

Wall Street analysts hope now that the two companies have put discounts aside, which should help improve earnings for both Intel and AMD.

Connectivity is provided by 802.11b/g - sadly not version 802.11n. It has a 20GB hard drive, but there's no mention of a memory card slot for that extra bit of storage capacity. There's 256MB of memory, and the Pad is based on AMD's 500MHz Geode LX800 CPU.

While early expectations were that 10h would constitute a potent competitor to Intel's Core architecture, there have been rumblings that AMD may be having trouble ramping 10h up to its full potential. Most prominently, AMD announced that its first Barcelona chips wouldn't exceed 2.0-GHz clock speeds. That cast a pall on AMD's party, though, to be fair, this may be more of an indication of process-based issues (i.e., ramping up the fabrication of the chips), than any limitation of the architecture.

Power is on everyone's mind these days and rightfully so. The cost of operating and cooling the average server is certainly not cheap, and is on the rise year over year. The question is whether the CPU is the component under the hood that is utilizing the majority of total system power or not. The answer to that question should be clear: the CPU is just a piece of the puzzle. Memory, fans, chipset, drives, HBAs, etc. all play a role in utilizing power.

AMD is clearly the leader when it comes to performance per watt, when you look at the total system. What is interesting to note is that AMD's advantage isn't at the processor level, but instead it's related to the fact that they don't use fully buffered DIMMs. Obviously, the measurements we took of each component aren't precise - it's just about impossible to do that (at least without sophisticated equipment). However, we can safely draw the conclusion that there is a lot more to power consumption than the CPU itself.

AMD marketing director Gary Bixter told CRN US that there would be no more craziness like there was last year. Further, he added that the firm is making attempts to woo the channel, which it alienated towards the end of last year by being unable to supply the right chips in the right quantity.