Dell silences AMD and IBM

By RICHARD WOOD

Lord of the Rings special effects company Weta Digital is refusing to say anything about buying a powerful new AMD-based computer because Dell Computer is trying to tie up marketing rights.

A Dell spokeswoman confirmed there were talks between Dell and the owner of The Lord of the Rings movies, New Line Cinema, about promotional opportunities.

It is believed these involve an association with the third movie in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Return of the King, which Weta is producing at present. But even if Dell wins the right to have its brand associated with the movie, it will be rival technology from IBM and local assembler Insite that is actually responsible for the special effects. Dell is believed to have supplied Weta with desktop PCs for administrative work.

A spokeswoman for chip manufacturer AMD has confirmed it has supplied Weta with one of its four-processor, state-of-the-art, 64-bit Opteron 844 Machines through Christchurch assembler Insite Technologies and Auckland specialist reseller Digital Video Technologies.

The Opteron is likely to be the first 64-bit, four-way processor that AMD has supplied to the New Zealand/Australia region.

It is possible it could be used to manage the "wall" of machines that render movie images, or to provide one designer with boosted workstation development power for key movie scenes.

Weta IT manager Scott Houston would not discuss the AMD technology or other technology additions.

Last week it was reported Weta had installed an additional 500 IBM servers each using dual Xeon 2.8MHz processors and 6 gigabytes of memory. The IBM systems takes the total amount of "blade" servers in Weta's rendering wall to around 1170.

IBM spokesman Jeremy Seed declined to comment on Weta technology use, as did Stuart Barnaby, managing director of Digital Video Technologies, and Jan Paterson, general manager of Insite.

A Dell spokeswoman said its discussions with New Line Cinema were tied to support Dell had supplied to one of the post-production facilities.

Dell has not had a high profile in New Zealand as being associated with The Lord of the Rings. Other computer firms known to be involved at Weta Digital include SGI, IBM, Digital Video Technologies, Insite Technology, Intel and now AMD. Its Opteron processor systems were released in April and compete with 64 bit systems from Intel.

A key advantage of the Opteron is that it can run 64-bit software usually found on large servers as well as the 32-bit software used on PCs.

Early reviews and benchmarking results were positive and AMD has "Athlon" 64-bit technology for desktop computers being released this month.