Items tagged with phenom II
Ever since Bulldozer's less-than-spectacular debut, enthusiasts and investors have watched to see if the company would follow up with faster chips that improved overall performance. That's finally started to happen; AMD announced two new chips today -- the quad-core FX-4170 with a 4.2GHz base clock speed / 4.3GHz Turbo mode, and the six-core FX-6200 at 3.8GHz stock / 4.1GHz Turbo. Both of the new parts are clocked ~15% faster than the FX-4100 and FX-6100 and may offer a slightly faster integrated memory controller as well; rumors indicate that the IMC is clocked at 2.2GHz, up from 2GHz. The new chips are reportedly based on the B3 stepping that's been in the works for months; current Bulldozer...
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Although much of the scuttlebutt lately has revolved around AMD’s upcoming Llano and Bulldozer-based APUs, the company isn’t done pushing the envelope with their existing processor designs. In case you haven’t noticed, over the last few months AMD has continued to ramp up frequencies on their current bread-and-butter Phenom II processor line-up to the point where they’re now flirting with the 4GHz mark. We should also point out that AMD has done so with little disruption to their relatively low pricing structure; as a newer, faster processor is released in a given product family, it occupies the historic top spot while the existing products have simply been pushed down...
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Although much of the scuttlebutt lately has revolved around AMD’s upcoming Llano and Bulldozer-based APUs, the company isn’t done pushing the envelope with their existing processor designs. In case you haven’t noticed, over the last few months AMD has continued to ramp up frequencies on their current bread-and-butter Phenom II processor line-up to the point where they’re now flirting with the 4GHz mark. We should also point out that AMD has done so with little disruption to their relatively low pricing structure; as a newer, faster processor is released in a given product family, it occupies the historic top spot while the existing products have simply been pushed down...
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AMD has released its Q1 financials, giving us a look into the company's execution through what is normally considered a down quarter, as well as an opportunity to judge the impact of Brazos on the company's bottom line. The results are quite good relative to AMD's financial performance these past few years. The company reports revenue of $1.61B (up two percent from Q1 2010), a net income of $510 million, and an operating income of $54 million. AMD, therefore, is in the black—even if just barely. According to acting CEO Thomas Seifert, Llano is "the most impressive processor in history." Overall sales in Q1 were driven by demand for Llano products. "First quarter operating results were highlighted...
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Enthusiasts and professionals alike have long been curious about Bulldozer's performance. It's been hard to predict how the CPU will perform compared to Intel's Nehalem and Sandy Bridge; Bulldozer's unique shared execution units are a considerable departure from anything else on the market. Leaked benchmarks courtesy of openbenchmarking.org have shed some light on what we might see when the processor launches. David Kanter of Real World Technologies has compared the Bulldozer results against Magny-Cours performance, but warns that it's unwise to draw conclusions based on engineering samples. There's a dearth of information regarding which compiler options were selected or if AVX was enabled....
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Two weeks ago, we discussed Asus' claim that certain AM3 motherboards would function properly when paired with AM3+ processors. We've since spoken with both companies and have a (slightly) clearer idea of what to expect. Asus' announcement is not, in any way, a refutation of AMD's previous comments on Bulldozer support. According to Sunnyvale, Bulldozer will only be supported on AM3+ motherboards. AMD directed all other questions to Asus while Asus, once we spoke with them, informed us that they were under NDA not to discuss any details of their previous announcement. We were, however, able to learn a few additional tidbits of information. Previously, we noted that AMD could theoretically transfer...
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One downside of the upcoming Phenom II - Bulldozer transition is that the new processors won't be compatible with current AM3 motherboards. This news disappointed certain AMD enthusiasts, given that Sunnyvale typically focuses on chipset longevity, but the company justified the mood by stating that the only way to fully exploit the power of Bulldozer's core was to switch to a new socket--AM3+. A recent announcement from Asus has thrown a wrench into this scenario. We've reached out to both Asus and AMD for additional information; neither has gotten back to us as of this writing. Asus' website states:Current owners of an AM3-based board* will make their AMD 8-Series motherboards compatible with...
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Microsoft's Surface has been an interesting technology platform ever since the company launched it back in 2007. The original Surface was built around a 30" LCD, ran at a resolution of 1024x768, could respond to up to 52 touches simultaneously, and was based on a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2GB of DDR2-1066. Despite these impressive statistics, the unit's high price ($12,500 and niche market status limited its practical deployment. Now, that may be about to change. At CES last weekend, Microsoft unveiled an impressively updated Surface Surface 2.0 is built around Samsung's SUR 40" LCD panel (a 77 percent increase), a Phenom II dual-core at 2.9GHz, and a Radeon 6700M. The display's...
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Yesterday, we chided AMD for its decision not to reveal more details about Bulldozer and Bobcat, but it turns out we didn't have all the facts. AMD was planning on disclosing more information later in the day at Hot Chips—but the company failed to disclose that tid-bit before we went live with our previous coverage. We're going to take a look at the new information about Bobcat and Bulldozer that's subsequently been revealed; if you want more general backround data you can get it here... Next-Gen AMD Bobcat and Bulldozer CPU Deep Dive...
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Yesterday, we chided AMD for its decision not to reveal more details about Bulldozer and Bobcat, but it turns out we didn't have all the facts. AMD was planning on disclosing more information later in the day at Hot Chips—but the company failed to disclose that before we went live with our previous coverage. We're going to take a look at the new information about Bobcat and Bulldozer that's subsequently been revealed; if you want more general background data, check the links above. Bully For Bobcat We'll start with the high-level block diagram of Bobcat's architecture, then step through some of the pertinent details. Bobcat shares certain characteristics with Atom but AMD's new...
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One of the major points of AMD's conference call (we apologize for missing it) was news that the company's Llano processor—a hybrid GPU/CPU product meant to clock in over 3GHz in dual-core and quad-core configurations—has been pushed back into the first half of 2011. Company CEO Dirk Meyer delivered the news on Thursday, even as he highlighted the company's positive quarter and improving revenue streams. The news isn't all bad. Even as he informed the press that Llano could ship as much as six months behind schedule, Meyer made a point of noting that the company's next-generation Ontario processor will ship for revenue beginning in Q4 of 2010. Up until now, Ontario wasn't expected...
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Q1 was the first quarter AMD reported its results entirely separate from those of GlobalFoundries, and the company's numbers were quite good. Revenue for the quarter was a record-setting $1.57B, the company reported an operating income of $247 million, and an operating profit of $182 million. That's an excellent shift from a year ago, when the company lost $298 million on revenue of just $1.18 billion. The company's gross margin of 47 percent (up two percent from Q4), thanks to a richer product mix. Revenue in both AMD's CPU and GPU businesses fell sequentially, in line with standard seasonal trends. AMD didn't break out its estimated market gains by segment, but believes it gained ground in...
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Let the battle for six-core supremacy begin. Up until now, Intel's ultra expensive Core i7 980X has been the only consumer-level six-core chip on the planet, but that all changes today now that a handful of online vendors have begun listing AMD's Phenom II X6 processor line. Provantage, for example, has started taking orders for AMD's Phenom II X6 1090T processor. This six-core chip races along at 3.2GHz and comes equipped with 9MB of L3 cache. You penny pinchers will be happy to know that it doesn't demand anywhere near the same pricing premium as Intel's 980X, and is instead listed at a much more pedestrian $318.50. Just because you can order these parts doesn't mean you'll receive them right...
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AMD revealed more information on its first Fusion-class product at ISSCC this week. The new chip will combine both a CPU and GPU on a single package, but don't use either nickname—AMD is calling the new chip an "APU" or Application Processor Unit as part of its bid to shift product focus from the core components in a system to the tasks and workloads a system is capable of handling. Done properly, this could solve certain nomenclature confusions that have plagued the computer market from the very beginning, but we aren't holding our breath. Both AMD and Intel have tackled this type of rebranding before (think AMD Live! and Intel ViiV), with minimal success. For now, however, we'll roll...
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