For too many people buying a PC can make going to the auto dealership look fun.   For the non geek, you just want to have computer that will do certain things and do them well.   You might want to edit photos, make home movies, run Word, or just browse the Internet and do Facebook.   The problem is when you hit the store, it’s giga this and mega that.   At least  on the showroom floor you can easily see how many cup holders the car has.

AMD is well aware of this problem.   At CES I sat down with them  and heard about their answer called Vision.   Yes, it is a new effort by them, so it is easy to think it will just be a smoke and mirrors marketing game,   but during the demos they gave me I got to see enough meat that I don’t think it is just a new marketing plan.

In a nut shell, AMD is not branding computers with CPU names and performance specs, but with a naming system  that tells you what AMD and the computer makers have  aimed for the computer to do.   The Vision naming system  correlates to  the tasks the computer will be good at performing. Since AMD makes both CPUs (brains) and GPUs (Graphics), the branding is based on whole systems – the CPU/GPU combination.

So new AMD-based PCs will be now branded primarily as either Vision, Vision Premium, or Vision Ultimate.   Later this year AMD will also later be introducing a Vision Black edition for “high-end, top of the line systems”

VISION Logos

VISION – These are systems aimed at entry level tasks such as e-mailing, surfing the Internet, viewing photos, or watching DVDs and online videos.   In the notebook market you may see systems with this brand for a little more than netbooks powered by Intel Atom processor, but offering greater performance.

VISION Premium – This is branding is for main stream laptops and desktops. Machines   with this branding will perform well showing blu-ray movies (when equipped with a blu-ray player), playing online HD video, playing most games, working with office suites, converting videos to watch on a portable media player and converting CD to MP3.

VISION Ultimate – These are high-end multi-core processors systems with discrete graphics cards that feature DirectX 10.1or DirectX 11.   These machines will excel at high end HD video editing, multi-track music software like Pro-tools the latest high end video games and CAD software.

Will it Help?

In general this is a great step forward in making PC shopping easier and more enjoyable. But there are times where specs do come in handy.   The weakness to this logo system can be in   transition times like we are seeing with new video cards supporting DirectX 11 over DirectX 10.1.   Two machines could have the same logo but one does DirectX 11 while the other doesn’t.

The Vision Ultimate and the upcoming Vision Black edition of the logo program are aimed at the high-end of the market  where many people are primarily concerned with specs. But as along as the manufacturers and AMD do have the old style specs handy when comes down to picking between 2 or 3 machines with the same logo class, these concerns will be easily addressed.

Overall the program gives the consumer a great starting place to find a machine that meet their needs and desires without the headaches of the past.