May 23, 2007

AMD to release Phenom quad-core processors

by Jan Harris

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thank you for visiting!

Computers & Internet

AMD expects to unveil its quad-core desktop processors later this year under the name ‘Phenom’.

Phenom FX and Phenom X4 quad-core chips and a dual core chip based on a similar design called the Phenom X2 will all be available by the end of the year.

Rival Intel has been distributing quad-core chips for servers and high-end desktops since last year.

Intel’s multichip modules are essentially two of the company’s dual-core chips welded together in a package.

AMD believes its single chip with four cores will provide superior performance to Intel’s quad-core offering, because information will not have to leave one core to visit its neighbour in AMD chips.

Intel believes that it has compensated for any manufacturing concerns by improving the speed and performance of its cache memory and the front-side bus.

However, Intel plans to deliver new quad-core chips later this year, and in 2008, will introduce Nehalem chips with the same integrated memory controller and point-to-point links as AMD’s.

AMD’s quad-core system features an integrated DDR2 memory controller, a shared L3 cache, the company’s HyperTransport technology links, 128-bit floating point units, and Socket AM2 and Socket AM2+ infrastructure compatibility for a seamless upgrade path.

Discuss this in the Internet Business forums

Story link: AMD to release Phenom quad-core processors

Add to Bookmarks: