AMD finally launches Phenom II and Dragon Platform

AMD's 45nm, quad-core Phenom II has finally arrived. It's available in two flavors, the 2.8GHz X4 920 and the 3.0GHz X4 940 Black Edition, going for $235 and $275, respectively. AMD's naturally touting the ostensible cost savings of the chips . The Dragon platform includes a Phenom II proc, 4800-series Radeon HD graphics and a 790-series motherboard, all of which should combine for low power consumption -- up to 40 percent compared to Phenom processors. Where the Phenom II definitely wins is the fact that some AMD folks will be able to drop in the chip to existing motherboards, but otherwise it looks like value hounds and performance junkies aren't being served by this new chip.

AMD finally launches Phenom II

Performance

The Phenom II's integrated memory controller and HyperTransport interface give it a technical edge over competing Core 2 Quad chips, which lack those features. Intel moved to an integrated memory controller and began incorporating its own version of HyperTransport--dubbed QuickPath Interconnect--only with its Core i7 platform. The integrated memory controller and HyperTransport interface allow Phenom II processors to achieve a higher memory bandwidth than Core 2 Quad processors can, by eliminating the bottlenecks created by a frontside bus and an external controller. The arrangement, in theory, improves system performance.

Model / Processor Frequency:	AMD Phenom II Processor Model X4 940 / X4 920 / 3.0GHz, 2.8GHz
L1 Cache Sizes:	64K of L1 instruction and 64K of L1 data cache per core (512KB total L1 per processor)
L2 Cache Sizes:	512KB of L2 data cache per core (2MB total L2 per processor)
L3 Cache Size:	6MB (shared)
Memory Controller Type:	Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller, capable of being configured for dual 64-bit channels for simultaneous read/writes
Memory Controller Frequency:	Up to 1.8GHz with Dual Dynamic Power Management
Types of Memory:	Support for unregistered DIMMs up to PC2 8500 (DDR2-1066MHz)
HyperTransport 3.0:	One 16-bit/16-bit link @ up to 3600MHz full duplex
Total Processor Bandwidth:	Up to 31.5 GB/s bandwidth
Packaging:	Socket AM2+ 940-pin organic micro pin grid array (micro-PGA) (backward compatible with Socket AM2)
Fab location:	AMD's Fab 36 wafer fabrication facilities in Dresden, Germany
Process Technology:	45nm (.045-micron) DSL Silicon on Insulator (SOI)
Approximate Transistor count:	approx. ~758 million (65nm)
Approximate Die Size:	258 mm2 (45nm)
Nominal Voltage:	.0875-1.5 Volts
Max Ambient Case Temp:	62 degress Celsius
Max TDP:	125 Watts
ACP:	*to be announced after launch
Future Memory Controller Note:	Future 45nm processors versions are planned to include support for DDR3 memory

Availability and Phenom II Processor Pricing

Consumers can expect to see systems featuring Dragon platform technology from leading system builders and OEMs in the first quarter of 2009. In addition to Dragon platform technology-based offerings from AMD’s OEM partners, PC enthusiasts who enjoy building their own systems can search “Dragon” on popular e-tail sites such as newegg.com and tigerdirect.com to find special promotions on this new desktop PC platform.

In addition to Dragon platform technology, individual AMD Phenom II X4 processors will be available from AMD channel e-tailers at launch:

AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition processor – (3.0GHz) – $275 MSRP

AMD Phenom II X4 920 processor – (2.8GHz) – $235 MSRP

AMD launches first 45nm, quad-core Shanghai Opterons, hitting desktops Q1

AMD has been blazing architectural trails well before Nehalem. As EE Times points out, AMD's 65-nm Barcelona was the first quad-core processor with 2MB of shared L3 cache integrated with the Northbridge memory controller. Now AMD has (finally) caught up with its own 45-nm technology under the code-name, Shanghai. AMD's newest quad-core Opteron server chip with 6MB L3 cache now offers up to 35 percent better performance while drawing 35 percent less idle power. Better yet, it's drop-in compatible with Barcelona which should keep IT-types happy as they extend the life of their server farms. Available immediately in 75-watt, quad-core versions running clock speeds from 2.3GHz to 2.7GHz.

"Barcelona was obviously a pretty rough start for them. And that does not appear to be the case for Shanghai," said Dean McCarron, the principal and founder of Mercury Research, a company that tracks chip market movements. "One of the big distinctions was they wanted to be absolutely sure that Shanghai was ready to go."

AMD launches first 45nm

Major customers are brimming with accolades for Shanghai. "We've been very pleased. Thrilled with their execution," said with Paul Gottsegen, vice president of Industry Standard Servers, HP, in an interview.

"We'll have products that will be shipping just after launch. We had high performance expectations for the product and it exceeded our expectations," he said. "We're going to put Shanghai across the meat of our product line. You'll see six different rack servers, three different blades, all up and down parts of our product line."

Shanghai technology ahead of Intel

Much of Shanghai's raw technology is a generation ahead of Intel. In a posting at EE Times, Don Scansen, a semiconductor technology analyst at Semiconductor Insights, said that many of the features that Intel is touting as new are not new to AMD and were initially introduced in AMD's Barcelona processor.

"Intel's Nehalem is due out soon, but many of the features of what has widely been touted as a 'new' architecture are only new to Intel," he writes.



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Intel Initiates Shipments of Core i7 Microprocessors.

Paul Otellini said during a conference call with financial analysts that the chipmaker has initiated shipments of its new microprocessors based on Nehalem micro-architecture. The new chips will enable higher performance and will also utilize radically different platform architecture that will resemble that of Advanced Micro Devices.

Intel Core i7/Nehalem Now Shipping

“I am pleased to announce that we began shipments of our Nehalem product family during the third quarter and expect to formally launch these products in November. Nehalem brings a new micro-architecture and new performance features. This new product family will further extend our performance leadership in microprocessors,” said Mr. Otellini while announcing financial results for the third quarter.

Mr. Otellini said that despite of economy crisis Intel intends to release its Core i7 as well as Xeon processors based on Nehalem micro-architecture as soon as possible in order to boost demand in certain market segments, which would naturally offset lowering demand from corporate segment in the USA.

“We are trying to pull them in as fast as possible. I think having those products simply makes us even more competitive and I think they generate some demand in some segments where we haven’t been participating, so that’s one where I feel pretty good about the product line and the sooner we get to it, the better across the board,” said chief executive of Intel Corp.

The release of Intel Xeon processors powered by Nehalem micro-architecture will particularly improve Intel’s positions on the market of servers, where AMD still can offer a lot of advantages over rival’s offerings. Given that Intel’s desktop processors aimed at professionals and entertainment enthusiasts are already faster than those from AMD, the chip giant only needs new chips in that segment to encourage end-users for upgrades.

Best Third Quarter Revenue in Its History – Intel

Intel on Tuesday announced record third-quarter revenue of $10.2 billion along with operating income of $3.1 billion, net income of $2 billion and earnings per share (EPS) of 35 cents.

“Intel delivered the best third-quarter revenue in its history. We were solidly profitable, with operating income of over $3 billion, reflecting strong across-the-board execution and best-of-class products” said Paul Otellini.

The company said that strong product portfolio and new product launches will help the company to remain successful amid financial crisis.

“As we look to Q4, it is hard to know what impact the financial crisis will have on end customer demand. We are confident that our product portfolio, strong cash flow, commitment to deploying new technology and market momentum will allow us to outpace peer companies at a time when business levels are difficult to predict,” the head of Intel promised.
New Chips Set to Boost Performance by 52%

Documents from Intel Corp. allegedly seen by a web-site earlier this month reportedly mention that Intel Core i7 processor 965 (3.0GHz) delivers 52% speed improvement in 3D games, 41% higher performance in media encoding and editing applications as well as 38% greater 3D rendering speed when compared to Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 (3.0GHz). If the information regarding performance improvements is correct, then it means that the new micro-architecture in its first implementation provides roughly 52% more performance at the same clock-speed compared to currently used Core 2 micro-architecture.

The main micro-architectural enhancement for Intel Core i7/Nehalem that Intel has discussed so far is increased parallelism – the new microprocessors will be able to execute 33% more concurrent micro-ops at the same time. Additional improvements include faster unaligned cache accesses and faster synchronization primitives. In order to exclude situations when execution units stand idle, Intel also implemented new 2nd level branch predictor.

Another key enhancement of Intel Nehalem is completely redesigned cache sub-system. The new chips will feature 2nd level 512 entry translation look-aside buffer (in addition to 1st level TLB) in order to further reduce the so-called TLB miss rate, a completely new feature on x86 microprocessors. In addition, Intel Nehalem processors (at least, in certain implementations) will have three-level cache hierarchy: 64KB L1 (32KB for data, 32KB for instructions), 256KB L2 cache per core, 8MB L3 cache per processor. Traditionally, Intel chips use inclusive cache policy.

The Intel Core i7 chips will feature triple-channel DDR3 memory controller (with up to 1333MHz clock-speed supported initially), will use Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) bus and will support multi-threading technology similar with Intel Hyper-Threading that was first unveiled back in 2002 as well as SSE4.2 instructions. source

Intel: Core i7 to Be Up to 52% Faster Compared to Core 2 Quad.

Intel Predicts Massive Performance Improvements with New Chips: Intel Core i7

Intel Corp. expects its forthcoming Intel Core i7 processors to be much more powerful compared to existing central processing units, according to documents reportedly seen by the media. If the information turns to be precise enough, then Intel has all chances to keep processor performance crown even after smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices launches its new chips.

Documents from Intel Corp. mention that Intel Core i7 processor delivers 52% speed improvement in 3D games, 41% higher performance in media encoding and editing applications as well as 38% greater 3D rendering speed when compared to Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770.

Intel Core i7 965 is a premium class Nehalem-micro-architecture microprocessor for desktops that operates at 3.20GHz. The Core 2 Extreme QX9770 is Intel’s top-of-the-range CPU at the moment at that also works at 3.20GHz. If the information regarding performance improvements is correct, then it means that the new micro-architecture in its first implementation provides roughly 52% more performance at the same clock-speed compared to currently used Core 2 micro-architecture.

The numbers are quite vague, but it is directly coming from Intel. Compared to a more expensive product, we can’t expect more. (QX9770>1450USD, Core i7-965=999USD)
Intel did not comment on the news-story.

Advanced Micro Devices recently said that its forthcoming quad-core processors powered by improved K10 micro-architecture will be roughly 35% more powerful than its existing chips at the same clock-speed.

AMD energy efficient processors going 45nm (amd -roadmap)

Sources noticed that AMD is going to release four 45nm energy efficient processors in 09Q2, two of them are Phenom X4, and another two are Phenom X3. AMD didn’t decide the product name of these processor yet, but they are going to use the new naming scheme, so the four new power saving Phenom will be Phenom X4 1xx00e and Phenom X3 1xx00e.

Both Phenom X4 1xx00e are Propus, that means they will not have L3 shared cache. One of them will run between 2.3~2.6GHz, HT3.0 will be 4000MHz, TDP 65W。 The second Phenom X4 TDP rated at 45W, core clock between 2.1~2.4GHz, HT3.0 speed is a little lower, runs at 3600MHz.

The spec of two Phenom X3 1xx00e almost the same, except one core disabled, so they are Rana cores.

Interesting little video about Intel’s 45nm chip manufacturing process.

AMD to intro 45nm quad-core Phenom this quarter

AMD appears to be staggering its 45nm quad-core desktop processor release schedule. It's preparing to release one this quarter, but the next two won't ship until toward the end of the year - before January 2009, is what the chip maker's said to be telling mobo makers.

First up, there's the successor to the current Phenom X4 9750, a 125W beast that will be superseded later this quarter by a 45nm version of the chip. The new 9750 will only consume 95W. So say said industry sources, cited by a variety of Chinese-language websites.

The current 9750 is clocked at 2.4GHz, and contains 2MB of L2 cache and and 2MB of L3 cache. Its successor is said to contain 6MB of L3 and be clocked in the 2.4-2.7GHz range, which suggests to us it'll have a model number somewhat higher than 9750.

Later in the year, we'll see a 45nm, 95W successor to the 125W 9850, again with three times the L3 cache of the current version. To the new 9850, we can also add a 45nm version of the as-yet-unlaunched 9950, the moles maintain.

AMD's desktop roadmap also calls for the Q3 launch of the tri-core 2.2GHz Phenom X3 8550, filling the empty space between the current 8450 and 8650. Expect to see the arrival of the low-power 8450e, 9150e and 9350e in Q3 too.

These are 65nm parts - 45nm low-power quad-cores, codenamed 'Propus', will apparently debut some time in H1 2009...

AMD can’t get to 45nm fast enough. A 12-core package?

If there was a bright spot in AMD’s first quarter, it was the new PC and graphics products that have either recently shipped or are in the pipeline for 2008. Barcelona, the company’s quad-core design manufactured using a 65nm process, bombed last year. Meanwhile, Intel is minting millions of 45nm chips. So it’s no surprise that AMD is shifting to 45nm processors as quickly as possible.

During the earnings call last week, AMD executives said the 45nm processor, code-named Shanghai, was on track and would be shipping in volume in the fourth quarter. By all accounts, Shanghai is largely a “shrink” of the recently-released B3 version of Barcelona, which corrected a flaw in the original design. But Daily Tech reports that AMD has more ambitious plans for the 45nm design.

Citing AMD engineers, the site says AMD will produce a six-core version, code-named Istanbul, and then, in a reversal of its “native-quad-core” strategy of putting all cores on a single piece of silicon, offer a two-die package with a total of 12 cores. The two processors will be connected using AMD’s HyperTransport 3.0 bus.

To be clear, this platform is designed for the server and workstation market. Based on recent presentations, AMD will also release a 45nm enthusiast desktop platform, code-named Leo, later this year that will consist of triple-core and quad-core chips. Mainstream and budget desktops, as well as business systems, will continue to use platforms based on 65nm processors until sometime in 2009.

AMD execs discuss strategy, 45nm chips, return to profitability

Shortly after AMD's first-quarter financial results became public yesterday afternoon, AMD executives held a conference call to talk a little bit about their plans for a return to profitability. While they're understandably disappointed with the results, they see a silver lining in the fact that customer response to new products like B3 Opterons, triple-core Phenoms, and Radeon HD 3000-series graphics cards has been positive. According to AMD CFO Robert J. Rivet, AMD's refreshed product portfolio should "pay solid dividends as the year progresses."

How does AMD plan to climb out of the ditch, though? To be clear, AMD CEO Hector Ruiz reiterated that current plans are still for AMD to return to profitability in the third quarter of this year. The recently announced 10% workforce reduction, as well as ensuing restructuring moves, should help make those plans a reality, and Ruiz also mentioned that AMD could close down unprofitable businesses in areas outside of its core operations:

We need to intensely scrutinize all of our businesses in order to ensure that our core x86 and graphics products are on a healthy path to leadership and profitability. We also need to intensely scrutinize our non-core businesses and revisit their strategic fit into our plans and their path to growth and profitability. Absent these, we will exit those businesses.

One thing Ruiz still wasn't willing to get into was AMD's future "asset-smart" strategy. However, he provided some hints of what AMD has planned. First, he announced that the company has made "significant progress" in elaborating strategy and added, "I'm very hopeful that we will be able to communicate details of this rather complex effort in the near future. At that time, we believe we will also have an opportunity to further restructure the company for increased focus and added flexibility." When asked in the Q&A session whether AMD needed to own its fabs in order to succeed, Ruiz went on to say:

First of all, I don't think the ownership of the capacity is necessarily a reflection of the leadership in technology needed there. Our partnership with IBM has demonstrated that we're able to hang in there relative to technology without having to own the R&D, for example, totally—we're sharing it. So, I'm a strong believer that—especially for us, we've demonstrated in the past, we'll demonstrate that going forward—that partnering with people is very important to our future, and particularly in the area of technology.

While not as clear as they could be, those statements seem to corroborate recent speculation that AMD might end up spinning off its chip fabrication business into another company.

Aside from broad strategic moves, AMD executives also shared a few details about upcoming products. Robert Rivet said AMD is on track to kick off 45nm production "at mature yields" in the summer, and AMD COO Dirk Meyer added that volume 45nm product shipments are scheduled for the fourth quarter of this year. There was also mention of Bulldozer, AMD's next-generation architecture, which is now scheduled to sample in 2009 using a 45nm process.

Looking ahead to the current quarter, Rivet expects "another challenging quarter," with Q2 revenue to decrease "in line with seasonality." He added that AMD is taking major steps to cut costs and restructure itself as quickly as possible, though, so Q2 net losses might not be as spectacular as they've been for the past six quarters.

source: techreport