AMD Barcelona will be launching on September 10th and a video has shown up on YouTube that appears to be a sales video. The video shows how easy it is to upgrade to the new chip, the video says it only takes 8 minutes.
Category: AMD
AMD Announces Athlon 64 X2 6400+
AMD has announced the Athlon 64 X2 6400+ “Black Edition.” This is expected to be the last 90nm dual-core processors. The processor clocks in at 3.2GHz with 2MB of L2 cache and a thermal design power of 125Watts in the Socket AM2.
The “Black Edition” part of its name isn’t exactly easily explainable especially since I haven’t seen any information saying exactly what it is for sure however I did read on TG Daily that they believe that the “Black Edition” name means that the processor may be in limited production.
I mentioned the Athlon 6400+ last month, saying that it was most likely a filler between the current Athlon processors and the upcoming Phenom processors, the idea that this will be in limited production affirms that idea.
The Athlon 64 X2 6400+ should be showing up in retail for about $240 at the end of this month.
Barcelona Launching September 10
AMD’s much anticipated Barelona Quad-Core processors will finally be launching on September 10th. AMD has achieved yields as high as they have with their dual-core processors so they expect to have good availability only a few days after the launch party.
The first processors based on Barcelona will be available at 2.0GHz but faster chips will be available soon afterwards. The desktop version of Barcelona which is named Phenom will be available in the 4th quarter of this year.
This is great news for AMD because they have been behind Intel for quite sometime now. I think it was extremely important for AMD to launch these quad-cores before the end of this year and certainly the Phenom chips by Christmas time. With it being available before Christmas, shoppers will undoubtedly be told by computer ads featuring AMD processors that AMD is the only one with “true quad-core processors,” a great way to market of course.
I really hope that these chips perform, if they don’t AMD is in real trouble.
AMD Starts Website Against Intel
“AMD Break Free” is a new site that AMD just opened. When you go to this site you get a splash screen that says “European Commission Reveals the Truth About Intel.” This seems to be a campaign against Intel regarding a “monopoly.”Now I don’t know enough about the hard numbers to say whether or not Intel is a monopoly or not, but I can say that they are much more dominant then AMD is.I suggest you head there and read some of the stuff so you can draw your own conclusions but I’ll throw some quotes out for you that they have posted.
“Intel extracted monopoly profits from the sale of microprocessors of approximately $60 billion in the period 1996 – 2006.” — Dr. Michael Williams, former U.S. Department of Justice economist (Aug. 2, 2007)“It may rub some people the wrong way to give a single vendor credit for anything, but without AMD there would be no price pressure on Intel, dual-core processors would still be a year away and the low-cost powerful desktops and servers from Sun, IBM and HP that are on the market today would still be on Intel’s 2007 product road map.” — eWeek “10 Thankful Things in IT for 2006” (Nov. 22, 2006)“[Intel] has spent billions of dollars on ill-fated forays in both computing and communications…Its predicament is so serious that it is cutting $1 billion in costs and may sell unprofitable parts of its business.” — The San Jose Mercury News (June 11, 2006)
AMD Phenom Model Numbers
AMD will be launching Phenom processors in the September/October time frame and there will be several coming out then and in the following months, here is a good list of what we will be seeing.
Phenom X4 GP-7100 – 2.2 to 2.4GHz – 3600MHz HyperTransport 3.0 – 89 Watts
Phenom GP-7000 – 2.0 to 2.2GHz – 3200MHz HyperTransport 3.0 – 89 Watts
Phenom X2 GP-6650 – 202 to 2.6GHz – 3600 HyperTransport 3.0 – 65 Watts
Phenom X2 GP-6800 – 2.4 to 2.8GHz – 4000MHz HyperTransport 3.0 – 89 Watts
The processors sound pretty good but I have an interesting theory of how AMD could turn things around. Intel was capable of putting out a Quad-Core processor very quickly because they slapped two Dual-core processors on a single chip. AMD could do it similarly with Quad-Core processors allowing them to have an 8-core processor in a single socket or a 16-core processor in a dual-socket motherboard. This of course would only swing things AMD’s way and Intel could easily do the same with 8-core processors but none the less AMD could use this to their advantage and be to market with a 16-core computer faster then Intel.
Source for AMD processors details – DailyTech
AMD to Luanch 6400+ Soon
AMD will soon be launching a new high end processor, the Athlon 64 X2 6400+. This will most likely just be a filler until AMD can get Phenom out. Phenom is due this year but will probably be in short supply until the beginning of next year.
AMD’s current high-end processor the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ cannot keep up with Intel’s high-end offering so the 6400+ will try and cover the gap.
The Athlon 64 X2 6400+ will be clocked at 3.2GHz with 2MB of L2 cache with pricing between $225 and $250. the 6400+ will perform about 10-15% slower then Intel’s E6850.
I hope that AMD can fill the gap even more when the Phenom lineup of processors is released but I’m concerned that Intel has too far of a lead on AMD.
AMD’s 50 by 15 Initiative
AMD has a launched an initiative called 50×15 (or 50 by 15). The goal of this is to have 50% of the world population using the internet by 2015. This is a great campaign and I think that it would benefit the world if 50+% of the world was on the net. I’m not sure if it is a goal that will be reached, but then again
I’m not the most optimistic person when it comes to world change, it is tougher than it sounds.
Well even if it doesn’t work it is still great, simply because they have a live graph, everyone loves a live graph.
AMD Cuts CPU Prices
A few days ago AMD cut prices again on their desktop processors. According to Cnet all of AMD’s Dual Core X2 desktop processors are now under $200, with the highest end X2 the Athlon 64 X2 6000+
at just under $200. The 3600+ and 3800+ X2 processors have been cut from the line up leaving the X2 4000+ at $73 as the newest entry level CPU.
The FX-72 and 74 are both priced at $599 (weird).
AMD has been cutting prices left and right because of pressure from Intel. AMD has really dropped the ball when it comes to performance in the desktop CPU market. I’m hoping that with the introduction of Barcelona in the next month or so it will help them bring back the crown.
Barcelona Clock Speeds and Ship Dates
AMD has been working on Barcelona for quite some time now but theInquirer has got some hard dates listed on their websites with clock speeds as well.
They are saying that the first of the Barcelona chips will show up on September 10th, 2 of them to be exact. A 1.9GHz numbered by AMD the 2348 and a 2GHz 2350. 2.1GHz 2352 and a 2.2GHz 2354 will be released in October.
the Inquirer has a lot more information about AMD Barcelona Clockspeeds.
First AM2+, Phenom Supporting, Motherboard by Biostar
Biostar has launched their TF560 A2+ Motherboard. This is the first motherboard to support AM2 and AM2+ processors.
The motherboard uses Nvidia’s nForce 560 chipset. This chipset is basically a cut down version of the 570, with the key difference being that the 560 doesn’t support SLI. The 560 does not need as much cooling as the 570 therefore the TF560 A2+ doesn’t have a fan on the chipset.
The motherboard is targeted at bang for the buck buyers but has an assortment of great features, 6 rear USB 2.0, SATA 3.0 Gbps, RAID, and 8 channel HD audio.
Sounds like a very future conscious board, buy it now and upgrade to the new AM2+ processors at the end of this year.
Other Biostar Products:
Biostar TForce 7050-M2
Biostar TForce 550 SE
Biostar Geforce 6100-M9
Biostar P4M800-M7A
AMD Phenom Launching in November
According to DigiTimes, AMD is set to launch it’s Phenom processors in November of this year.
in the fourth quarter of 2007 AMD will launch the Phenom FX-80, The Phenom X4 GP-7100 and GP-7000, Along with the Phenom X2 GS-6550.
Finally AMD will get around to launching their 4-core processors. I’m really hoping that these processors will be able to keep up with Intel’s offerings. The CPU space needs to become more competitive then it is right now, Intel is just wiping the floor with AMD.
AMD Phenom Logo
I mentioned the AMD.com Teaser here. Well the mystery has been solved. The AMD Phenom logo has been revealed. Its kind of hard to see but you can get a little glimps of it below.
The logo is actually pretty cool looking, a lot better then the Athlon logos. I guess that is all the teaser was about.