AMD to Launch 'Phenom II' at CES

[Final8y]

Advanced Micro Devices will launch its Phenom II microprocessor at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this coming January, executives at AMD's annual analyst meeting said Thursday.

Specifically, AMD will launch the Phenom II X4 processor, part of its "Dragon" enthusiast platform, said Bob Grim, the senior manager of product marketing for AMD's desktop group. The Phenom II X4 is also known as the "Deneb" core, which is the desktop version of the "Shanghai" processor for servers that AMD launched on Thursday.

The Dragon platform will be AMD's platform for the enthusiast segment during 2009, replacing the "Spider" platform that launched at the end of 2007 in conjunction with the first Phenom processor.

Grim and other executives provided a few details about the Dragon and the Phenom II X4. The processor will contain 8 Mbytes of cache and connect to either DDR-2 or DDR-3 memory, AMD executives said.

The availability of cheap components is important. AMD executives said Thursday that they are refocusing AMD on the value and mainstream segments and on SMB customers, and away from the enterprise. Grim also positioned the upcoming rival Core i7 "Nehalem" processor from Intel as one that was out of touch with the marketplace.

"Expensive motherboards, expensive memory...all expectations says that the processor will be expensive as well," Grim said. That's partially true, and partially false: Intel has released its pricing strategy for the Core i7 in advance of the launch.

The Dragon platform, meanwhile, will combine the Phenom II with "a terascale graphics engine for breakthrough performance," according to AMD. Graphics options will range from integrated components to "superior quad graphics", the company said. The platform will also ship with the AMD Overdrive CPU control utility as well as its Fusion optimization tool.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2334699,00.asp

 

[HighlandeR]

Jan 09 sounds realistic but am disappointment with this news since other reports suggested its due this month !

But Jan 09 sounds more realistic....

AMD have a real chance here with Core i7 out of reach and too expensive for 99% of the credit crunch market, AMDs goals are cheaper and affordable lets just hope there tech is able to compete.

 

[Tee Hee Johnson]

Intel dont need i7 yet... c2d is still a very viable platform

Until AMD come up with something that can at least threaten c2d, then i7 prices will remain high.

If this Phenom II is any kind of competition for either c2d or i7... watch the prices fall! But wait and see what happens! I lost lots of faith in AMD a few years back...

 

[Bleek]

Well seeing as the current Phenom is more then capable of keeping up with c2d (at 3GHz+) I'm sure the v2 will be just fine.

AMD do need to roll out 3GHz+ chips though.

 

[SKILL]

Looking at the Shanghai they've released a 2.7GHz version that's got a TDP of 75W (heavily pushing the Performance Per Watt in the server market), considering it's pretty much the same as a Deneb, and desktop high-end chips are usually 125W I'm thinking we'll easily see a 3GHz at least chip at release.

And from most reports I've seen a Phenom (Barcelona core) clock-for-clock is at least as good as the core 2 quads, if not a touch better, so Phenom II/Deneb should be (finally) some decent competition for Intel

But we'll see how things go, be interesting as well to see as that news release mentions 'terascale graphics' which might imply an updated graphics chip as well

 

[Jabbs]

They need to clock well this is the factor for me, c2d/quad clock so good why would anyone bother if they can get the same performance for a smaller price.

 

[drunkenmaster]

They need to clock well this is the factor for me, c2d/quad clock so good why would anyone bother if they can get the same performance for a smaller price.

phenom's already do 3Ghz easy, quite a few do 3.5Ghz, most fall inbetween which frankly on air is roughly what you'd of gotten out of a Q6600. Again for 99% of users you can't, no matter what a benchmark tells you, feel the difference in games, watching video, surfing the net, etc, etc, etc.

So far it looks like they'll be roughly 20-30% faster than a Barcelona clock for clock but the fact is AMD want to win back the appearance of being budget and more affordable. But it doesn't really matter, they sell loads but can't really make an impact on the market till the new fabs are up and running, which aren't "that" far off and have more than ample funding so they are certainly being built.

But in the meantime they now have more than ample cash to keep them going and let them persue long term goals rather than short term.

Short term, the Barcelona was cut down from what it needed to be as they have limited funds, limited production capacity and simply put they had to make Barcelona perform well but be as small as humanly possible, they did a truly, absolutely outstanding job, i mean, insanely great job. THe problem is people see the chip as trying to be the best it could ever have possibly been, and seeing as the ATh 64 was faster than a P4, this should have been faster than a C2D chip, which was and is ridiculous.

INtel are essentially producing chips with almost zero limits to its design or production so it could do exactly what it wants with really no sacrifice at all.

AMD have to cope with increasing demand and only two fabs, jump from dual to quad core, their only goals were, largest possible number of chips and be remotely fast, they did great.

With massive limits in place they made a chip that on any home computer is cheaper and produces the same performance for most home tasks including gaming. On the server side the great scaling of the 4/8 way combo's still made it "ok" even when it lacked raw power.

Shanghai/Deneb is essentially the "we might be limited but we've got trillionaires backing us, screw size, screw loss of sales and screw everything , make the chip what it wants to be and in a couple years we'll have fabs to cope with it properly" , so Barca mark 2, (or the original barca) comes out with the cache it needs, the space for more core logic and you have a better chip which should clock better and performs a lot faster.


It will kill the server market as its already faster than the C2D based Xeon's, and Nehalem 8 ways aren't out for a year.


It thing that will be really interesting is when both companies have multiple fabs, AMD have the money to design the chips they really want with the same freedom Intel do. At the moment AMD are in a boxing fight with a hand tied behind their back. In a couple years we should get some silly chips for silly cheap.

 

[Glaucus]

As I said in another thread. it will be interesting to see how they compare in benchmarks to the q9xxx range. The i7 will trounce it. But this hop fully will be a q9xxx beater.

 

[Final8y]

As I said in another thread. it will be interesting to see how they compare in benchmarks to the q9xxx range. The i7 will trounce it. But this hop fully will be a qxxxx beater.

I will only be interested in real world benchmarks with real tasks as that's the point of a computer.

Synthetics are more for fun & tweaking.

 

[Pulseammo]

I think that AMD may be on to a good thing here, if Deneb is at least half decent, i.e. it can fight against some of the Core2Duos by clocking them up easily then they will be a much cheaper option than I7 for a while, but also offer an upgrade path. So basically what they did with the hd4850 - bang for buck.

 

[braveheart]

I rather wait until late 2010 for new AMD Socket AM3 with 32nm -- Im not upgrade until Q2/Q3 2010 or later.. I rather wait much longer no need to hurry to upgrade as you know 12 month run so fast..

 

[Scougar]

Let's be honest, all most people care about is that it is fast, overclocks well, and the supporting motherboards have good features and are reliable.

If any of the above are sacrificed then AMD will lose out.