While reading through excellent Phenom II scaling article on Madshrimps, we encountered a very interesting line. According to Madshrimps, Globalfoundries is working hard on improving its existing process nodes and the results are very encouraging. Thanks to engineering experts over at Abu Dhabi-powered Dresden foundry, AMD will be able to release Phenom II 955 processor. Phenom II 955 allegedly works at 3.2 GHz, with working voltage of only 1.25V, down 0.10V from Phenom II 920 and 940. If all things work out, P-II 3.2 GHz just may be the ticket for the upcoming launch of AMD 800 series of chipsets. We’re not sure is this
Impossible is nothing: Turn your Phenom X3 into an X4!
Ok, let’s face the facts. Phenom X3 and new Athlon X2 are nothing else but a Deneb core (Phenom X4) that either failed the quad-core validation – or lower-core parts were needed more than quad-cores. Production cost was the same in any case. Intel was the first manufacturer to introduce this “element” into the mix, way back in late 1990s. First “expensive turned cheap” processor was a certain Celeron processor that shared the same die as more expensive Pentium III processors. But the caveat was that specific boards recognized that CPU as Celeron with whole amount of cache, and those beasts were more overclockable than
STEAM: Intel 8-core Skulltrail almost outsold 3-core Phenom X3
Recession, what recession? $10,000 computers almost outsold $600 ones, as proved by Steam Hardware Survey, questioning more than 16 million gamers worldwide.
AMD delays Leo platform to end of 2009?
We hope to see good news coming from AMD, but lately we seem to be out of luck. According to Fudzilla, AMD decided to postpone the introduction of RD890/SB850 chipset. At present, status of RS880/SB810 is unknown, but it is more than likely that this chipset joined the delayed RD890/SB850. As you probably know, RD890 is a successor to 790FX (RD790), while RS880 is supposed to succeed 790GX (RS790). Only difference between RD and RS chipsets is the presence of integrated graphics, but more importantly, both RS880/RD890 were key components for the Leo platform. According to original plans, AMD’s platform challenge was consisted out of
Something weird happened… RAM dies, CPU dies too?
With the trend of integration of Northbridge inside the CPU, one of questions that fall into place is what happens with the CPU if memory decides to give up the ghost. In the past, it wasn’t a rare thing to see memory modules driving the motherboard to the ground as well, and it was always an open question what will happen with the memory controller inside the CPU. Intel even went far to state that the company won’t warranty the Core i7 CPUs that have DDR3 modules with more than 1.65V voltage. Well, sadly, I got my answer earlier today. System consisted out of AMD
STEAM: Intel, ATI gain users, AMD+Nvidia continue the negative trend
Like a clockwork, Steam released its hardware survey for December 2008. A lot of interesting gains with the biggest winners being Intel processors, ATI graphics cards and Windows Vista operating system.
Alleged Core i7 TLB issue is NOT a story at all
Earlier today, the world started to turn around news coming from a fellow website that claimed that ominous TLB-bug stroke Intel’s latest baby, Core i7 series. Transition Lookaside Buffer erratas/bugs are notorious and took financial and reputational tool from Intel and AMD in the past. Hearing news about TLB bugs happening with Core i7 had the potential to become a story of the year, just like AMD lost huge chunk of market confidence 12 months ago with TLB-bug on Barcelona/Agena (Opteron/Phenom). Could it be that Nehalem architecture has a similar flaw? Well, prior to running my story, I decided to read the document in question
EVGA prepares AMD attack
The story about EVGA’s motherboards was always about a combination of Nvidia chipset and Intel processors. This changed a little with the introduction of X58 chipset based motherboard, but it still features Nvidia’s nForce 200 chip. But, those products addressed Intel Socket 775 and Socket 1366. When I inquired EVGA’s reps about motherboards for AMD, I was often told that “until the company is able to deliver a product for enthusiasts, we’re not interested”. But then again, the moment EVGA acquired EPoX’es engineering team, I knew that there were souls in that team that created one of best nForce 2 motherboards on the market, the
Akasa’s little “Made in Europe” cooler is absolutely brilliant
Long time ago, I received Akasa REVO Cooler. This cooler is based on new concept, and it is not “yet another heatpipe cooler”. Instead, REVO is designed around concept called “bubble-pump” – dual-component coolant that circles in hermetically sealed environment. All in all, product that should be compared to water-cooling products, not heat-pipe or vapor chamber ones. The downfall of the part was its unattractive looks, because performance-wise, this baby packs some serious punch. When I spoke to Adrian and Caterina, they were quite cautious about the performance, claiming the part was oriented towards silent computing, and not enthusiasts. While this may be true, this
Core i7 is much bigger than Core 2 or Phenom
During the past couple of days, quite a few friends and acquaintances asked me about the differences in packaging between Core 2 and i7 series of processors. It seems that there is belief that there is no need to replace the motherboard (huh? New CPU Socket people – yes, you have to replace the motherboard). But also, I failed to find a good Core 2 vs. i7 vs. Phenom shot on the internet, so there you go. On the left, we have AMD Phenom X4 9850+ Black Edition, middle spot is taken by Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6800 and Core i7 Extreme 965 is on
45nm Phenoms to offer excellent overclocking capabilities
Behind the scenes of Analyst Day 2008 (held on November 13), AMD decided to execute hard and unpopular political decision. The company decided to help the bottom line by leaving the Q4 desktop and notebook market to Intel, and focus on server/workstation markets. AMD decided to postpone 45nm desktop chip (Deneb, e.g. Phenom II) for hard launch on January 8, 2009 – first day of CES 2009. This way, complete 45nm production in 2008 will be branded as Opterons and target higher ASPs. But don’t think for a second that AMD decided to drop the towel on desktop market: Deneb and Deneb FX are turning
Deneb set to launch end of November, again in Channel
Roughly a year after the debut of AMD’s Spider platform, 45nm processors are coming in the frame. Under codename Deneb (Phenom) and Shanghai (Opteron), these babies are starting to appear from thin air. We’ve received word that the new Phenom is again repeating the history of original Phenom, and that is launching too late for major system design wins from the likes such as Dell, HP and others. So, AMD is going to launch Deneb in channel first, and you can expect those Black Edition processors appearing out of thin air. Overclocking results are really promising, and on 790 boards with SB750 Southbridge, you can
New “nForce for AMD” chipsets take shape under GeForce name
Last week, Chinese site Expreview.com published a story about the new generation of nForce chipsets for AMD processors. We managed to find more details through course of the weekend. For starters, the lineup will consist out of three (not two) chipsets with various capabilities. MCP82-S1, MCP82-S2 and MCP82-S3 will round the lineup, all targeting their respective markets (high-end, mainstream and entry-level). The S1 and S2 will support SLI, while S3 targets lucrative OEM/ODM deals – our sources indicate that this variant will be pitched as a successor to GeForce 6150 line that conquered many Dells, HPs and Acers out there. MCP82-S1 targets the high-end, with
