AMD Pushes Affordability With Six-Core Phenom II X6
4/28/2010 01:07:00 AM
kenmouse
, Posted in
It's not really a surprise, but AMD today announced its entry into the six-core desktop chip market, with its Phenom II X6 chip, which had been code-named Thuban.
This chip, manufactured on Global Foundries' 45nm process (which is used in the current quad-core Phenom IIs as well) is similar to AMD's six-core Operton server chips, but designed for the desktop environment.
In some respects, AMD's entry is similar to Intel's Core i7-980X Extreme processor, known as Gulftown, which was introduced last month. But in other ways, it points out the different approach AMD is taking to the market. While Intel is emphasizing peak performance and "hyperthreading" (allowing two threads to run on each core), AMD is emphasizing its overall chip platform, including discrete graphics, as well as affordability.
The Phenom II X6 is meant to be paired with AMD's 890FX chip set, which adds native support for 6 Gb/second SATA drives, and AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5800 series discrete graphics boards. The chip set supports AMD's Overdrive utility for overclocking, as well as "Black Edition" certified high-speed memory. The graphics boards, which are coming out in more flavors, support Direct X 11 and ATI's Eyefinity technology, which lets them work with up to six monitors. And AMD says all the initial motherboards will support USB 3.0 through an external NEC controller. But the new procesors don't require the new chipset; they were designed to also work in existing AM2+ and AM3 sockets with a software upgrade, and in the existing 125W TDP power envelope.
The new chip is AMD's first to support what it calls "Turbo Core," which lets up to three cores run faster while the other three run in a lower power state, to better support applications that don't need all of the cores. This is similar in intent to Intel's "Turbo Boost" technology, though AMD's method isn't quite as flexible. Still, the company says it should allow the 3.2GHz model 1090T to be run at up to 3.6 GHz.
While the products do not support symmetric multithreading, AMD executives have stressed that more cores are always better than more threads, saying additional threads typically provide an extra 20% performance uplift in applications that can use them, while extra cores typically provide an extra 80% improvement. So AMD will be emphasizing relative affordability, saying the initial high-end chip, that 3.2 GHz version, will sell for under $289, much less than Intel's current six-core offerings; indeed, these chips should be priced more competitively with Intel's 4-core, 8-thread chips. I'll be interested in seeing how it performs in comparison.
This chip, manufactured on Global Foundries' 45nm process (which is used in the current quad-core Phenom IIs as well) is similar to AMD's six-core Operton server chips, but designed for the desktop environment.
In some respects, AMD's entry is similar to Intel's Core i7-980X Extreme processor, known as Gulftown, which was introduced last month. But in other ways, it points out the different approach AMD is taking to the market. While Intel is emphasizing peak performance and "hyperthreading" (allowing two threads to run on each core), AMD is emphasizing its overall chip platform, including discrete graphics, as well as affordability.
The Phenom II X6 is meant to be paired with AMD's 890FX chip set, which adds native support for 6 Gb/second SATA drives, and AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5800 series discrete graphics boards. The chip set supports AMD's Overdrive utility for overclocking, as well as "Black Edition" certified high-speed memory. The graphics boards, which are coming out in more flavors, support Direct X 11 and ATI's Eyefinity technology, which lets them work with up to six monitors. And AMD says all the initial motherboards will support USB 3.0 through an external NEC controller. But the new procesors don't require the new chipset; they were designed to also work in existing AM2+ and AM3 sockets with a software upgrade, and in the existing 125W TDP power envelope.
The new chip is AMD's first to support what it calls "Turbo Core," which lets up to three cores run faster while the other three run in a lower power state, to better support applications that don't need all of the cores. This is similar in intent to Intel's "Turbo Boost" technology, though AMD's method isn't quite as flexible. Still, the company says it should allow the 3.2GHz model 1090T to be run at up to 3.6 GHz.
While the products do not support symmetric multithreading, AMD executives have stressed that more cores are always better than more threads, saying additional threads typically provide an extra 20% performance uplift in applications that can use them, while extra cores typically provide an extra 80% improvement. So AMD will be emphasizing relative affordability, saying the initial high-end chip, that 3.2 GHz version, will sell for under $289, much less than Intel's current six-core offerings; indeed, these chips should be priced more competitively with Intel's 4-core, 8-thread chips. I'll be interested in seeing how it performs in comparison.
0 Response to "AMD Pushes Affordability With Six-Core Phenom II X6"
Post a Comment
Leave Your Thoughts & We Will Discuss Together