AMD’s Quantum PC is powered by Intel: go figure

AMD’s ultra-small Quantum PC promises a chic, contemporary aesthetic, unbelievable performance, a lightweight design and little to no noise to speak of.

Without published benchmarks, because we’ll never get our own hands on one, we’ll just have to take AMD’s word for it.

If they say that it can muster between 60 and 90 fps at 4K (3840*2160) resolution, then we’re going to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, it’s powered by not one, but two Radeon Fury graphics cards – we’re guessing a pair of R9 Fury X’s.

The inner shell of the AMD Quantum’s cooling.

That’s certainly something to gawp at, but when we originally heard that it was powered by an AMD CPU, we weren’t so sure.

Granted, AMD’s CPUs aren’t completely without merit. And their forthcoming x86 Zen CPUs certainly promise high performance, but there’s no way the CPUs will be ready for the Quantum anytime soon, and any previous AMD CPU just isn’t going to cut the mustard.

So are you at all surprise that AMD’s Quantum PCs are powered by their arch-rival’s CPU? Yup, the Quantum sports an Intel Core i7-4790K “Devil’s Canyon” processor, currently the highest performing desktop CPU Intel make – and to top it off, the PC will use Asrock’s Z97E-ITX/ac mainboard.

Keep in mind that another particularly powerful ultra-small performance PC, the Northwest Falcon Tiki, is using AsRock’s X99E-ITX/AC – primarily because it’s using an Xeon CPU, but AsRock certainly seem to be on fire these days.

The AMD Quantum opens to reveal an Intel Core i7-4790K and AsRock Z97E-ITX/ac mainboard.

We’re happy that AMD has chosen to swallow their pride and use the optimal CPU for the situation. Nerfing the Quantum’s performance wouldn’t have been worth it.

Besides, with an Intel Core i7-4790K at the helm, the Quantum is going to fly much, much higher. Though AMD’s partners charged with manufacturing the Quantum may well opt for Intel’s Core i7-6700K “Skylake” CPU should the timing be right, suggests KitGuru.

The 6700K’s 4 cores/8 threads, a 4.0GHz/4.20GHz base/turbo frequency, 8MB of cache and an impressive TDP of 95W is nothing if not promising.