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AMD Quad Core CPUs arrive in August
Author: Richard SwinburnePublished: 29th June 2007
Some of AMD's Quad Core CPUs will arrive in August
The first available chips will arrive in frequencies of up to 2.0GHz (Code: 2350) and will come in both standard and low-power models. AMD is expecting to get the clock speeds ramped up to 2.5GHz by Q4 this year, though, for those of you itching for some high-speed Opteron action by Chrimbo.
AMD states that its "Quad-Core AMD Opteron™ processors can deliver significant performance and performance-per-watt enhancements over existing processor architectures yet are designed to be backwards compatible with existing AMD Opteron platforms." The processors will launch on an AM2+ socket, which is backwards compatible to current AM2 boards - although that will reduce their HyperTransport frequency and native power regulation functions.
As always, we'll remain sceptical until we get one in our own labs to test. It's likely that four cores won't benefit everyone, but the performance enhancements should certainly be a step in the right direction. Intel's 45nm Penryn will be due by then, so we'll see how much of a difference the idea of native quad-core really makes.
Excited about AMD's new wares? Or just want to stick to your Core 2s? Drop us some comments over here.
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Comments (17)Stats: 0.031 seconds
I thought AMD was creating a technology where it would figure out a way to let one thread's math be spread accross two cores? Was i loosing it?
The press release just mentions Opterons, but Phenoms should be around the same time. Either/Or, they are both Barcelona and it will directly compete with Intel's Quad Cores.
On die memory for Intel isn't expect until Nehalem next summer.
NOT everyone runs Intel!
Mmmmmm. Bacon.
Phil
if i can pick up a Q6600 for ~266 from the 22nd of july, then what will a 2.0 GHz quad core amd cost me in august? The way i figure there is no way AMD can compete on price/performance with intel, even with barcelona. If 2.0 is the best they can do in august, they would have to sell their top end desktop chips for ~$250 for them to come close to being competetive with intel.
Either way, if they do end up launching at low-low prices, and performance doesnt end up sucking, i might not get a Q6600 and switch back to AMD instead, but im not holding my breath
you're not losing it...i remember that rumor too. I think, though, soon after the rumor surfaced, AMD made a statement saying that it was false.
What you are describing is fine multithreading where software is written to divide the workload between core equally. fine multithreading such as the Povray test can take advantage of more than one core and the work output scales. Scaling means that instead of doing the work of 100% of the single cores clock cycles dual cores or more can do 200% of the work that a single core can do.