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AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU Coming on April 20th

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AMD was planning to launch 3.1GHz Phenom II X4 950 in Q2 according to our previous source, but Phenom II X4 955 is said to replace it as the fastest AMD CPU.

Phenom II X4 955 has employed 45nm processing and Socket AM3. Clocked at 3.2GHz (16*200MHz), it’s coming with 2MB (4*512KB) L2 Cache and 6MB L3 Cache. With 125W TDP, Phenom II X4 955 is said to be launched on April 20th.

Intel prepping 2.0 GHz Atom Z550 processor

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With the Atom dominance expected to continue, even with the competition from ARM, VIA and others, Intel is reported to be planning the introduction of a 2.0 GHz version of its low-power 45nm CPU. Named Z550, the MID-targeting processor would start selling next month and have 512kB of L2 cache, a FSB of 533 MHz and a TDP of 2.4W, just like its brothers, the 1.86 GHz Z540, and the rather popular 1.6 GHz Z530 which is used in a few netbook models on sale today.

The price of the Atom Z550 is yet unknown but Intel could simply ask $135 and thus lower the price of the Z540, and, consequently, the Z530. Were all for cheaper and more powerful.

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32nm CPUs next year from AMD

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Although Advanced Micro Devices was previously expected to get ready to produce central processing units under the 32-nanometer process technology only in 2011, it seems that the chip maker plans to speed things up a little. Dirk Meyer, chief executive of AMD, stated recently that the company was set to “ramp up” production in the middle of next year, and that it expected volume production to start in the fourth quarter of the year.

Currently, the CPUs shipped by both AMD and Intel are fabricated using the 45nm process. The Sunnyvale company has managed to come to the market with processors manufactured under the 45nm process only in the fourth quarter of last year, but it seems that it expects to be able to move to the next-generation 32nm fabrication by mid 2010.

Unlike the previous generation of chips made by AMD, the 32nm CPUs will only be designed by the company, The Foundry Company being the one that will take on the manufacturing process. It seemsthat the spinoff of its facilities into a new entity helped the chip maker keep on track with rolling out new-generation processors only about a year behind archrival Intel.

According to Meyer, AMD and Advanced Technology Investment Co., formed by the Abu Dhabi government, will close today the deal regarding the spinoff of the chip maker's manufacturing operations into a joint company. This move is expected to help AMD put an end to an entire line of quarterly loses.


Meyer says that the chip maker expects the Foundry Co to provide it with the necessary resources, mainly due to the fact that AMD will own 34 percent of the newly formed joint venture. At the same time, he seems to believe that the spinoff was a great move for AMD. “We've been actually impressed to see the quality and depth of the relationship a fabless company can have with its partners,” Meyer said.

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Intel intros specialized Atom for cars and other devices, outsources some Atom manufacturing

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Intel intros specialized Atom for cars and other devices, outsources some Atom manufacturing

Relying on the same 45nm manufacturing process, the new Atom Z5xx series processors expectedly aren't too radically different from the average Atom, with them clocking in between 1.1GHz and 1.6GHz, and boasting a TDP rating of 2.0 or 2.2 watts, although they do have some "embedded lifecycle support" thrown in for good measure. In related news, Intel has also announced that it'll be outsourcing "some" Atom manufacturing to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (or TSMC), which apparently marks the first time that Intel has licensed its CPU core to a foundry.

Dual-CPU Nehalem systems pump up the bandwidth

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Intel will officially introduce the dual processor Nehalem-EP, aka Gainestown.

Essentially, it keeps the same format and LGA1366 socket as the uni-processor Core i7, just dual CPU support and two QPI links per chip this time - one to talk to the Tylersburg chipset, another for high speed whispering to its twin Nehalem brother.

Even the workstation flavour of the Tylersburg is identical to the desktop one (X58) plus of course an extra QPI link to talk to that second CPU - or the second Tylersburg in dual North Bridge configuration for, say, quad PCIe x16 monster boards. Just count the PCIe lanes on this diagram.

Intel changes all logos

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Intel just got into business of changing logos, and we just found out how the rest of the line up looks like.

The new logo is much wider than the previous one and on the top right corner you can see something that looks like chip. Core i7 and Core 2 Extreme logos are black, while Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 vPro are blue and very similar.

Many Centrino logos are all in white, and the top one is Centrino 2 inside, runner up is Centrino 2 vPro followed by Centrino inside and Centrino vPro inside.

Itanium, Xeon, and Core 2 Viiv sort of didnt change their format, while Xeon will come in new blue colour, probably for Nehalem based Xeons. New logos will be effective as of April 1st, the first day of Q2 2009.

Demand for three-core Phenoms II on the rise

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Following fourth core unlock reports

Demand for AMD three-core Phenom II chips is on the rise, following reports that the fourth core on many units can be activated after fiddling with some bios settings.

Of course, the hack doesn't work on all CPUs, but only certain batches, so consumers can't really expect a 100 percent success rate, but nevertheless, the prospect of a free fourth core seems quite appealing to some.

Of course, AMD refuses to officially comment the three-core to quad-core five-finger discount hack.

Several readers have already contacted us to confirm they managed to succesfully enable the fourth core, and in case you have a three-core Phenom II, and you've tried enabling the disabled core, we would like to hear from you.

More here.

Nehalem based Xeons on last day of March

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Official launch on March 30th

Intel will officially launch the Nehalem generation of Xeons on the very last day of March. While it will show itself in Intel’s pricelist on March 28th, the official launch and availability is planned for the last day in Q1.

The new Xeon will also get a new logo, which is slightly different then the existing one, with a different colour scheme. We are not sure that many customers will be ready to swap their Penryn based servers for Nehalem based ones, mainly due to cost related issues, but we are quite sure that Nehalem based Xeons should end up much faster than Penryn 45nm based Xeons.