Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 VS. AMD Athlon X2 7750

Kuma, 2.7GHz, 200MHz FSB, 13.5x multiplier, each core 64K L1 instruction Cache and 64K L1 data Cache, 2×512KB L2 cache, 2MB L3 cache and it supports SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4A and X86-64. In AthlonX2 7750 black edition reviewed we contrasted its performances with Athlon X2 5400＋ black edition and it really improved a lot.

Currently, Core 2 Duo E7300 is about 110$ while Athlon X2 7750 is about 70$.AMD 790GX is about 85$ while NVIDIA MCP7A is about 100$.

Athlon X2 7750 black edition

Core 2 Duo E7300

PCMark Vantage focuses on the whole performances of the system and E7300 is a little better.


Athlon X2 7750 system is much better than E7300 system.

E7300 is about 110$ while Athlon X2 7750 black edition is about 70$, then the AMD system can save about 30$. The price of the 790GX is about 85$ while MCP7A is about 100$, and then AMD system can save other 15$.

The price and performance of Athlon X2 7750 black edition+790GX are both good

via:.hardspell.com read full article here

Intel and AMD new quad-core chips

AMD and Intel ended 2008 with a new quad-core hit. There is Intel Core 2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000 that is the latest mobile processor from Intel and it has been housed in the Acer’s recently launched 8930G laptop, and AMD’s Phenom II processors that have popped up online for consumers’ pre-orders.

As mentioned earlier, the Intel Core 2 Quad Mobile Processor Q9000 has been housed in the Acer’s recently launched 8930Gnotebook and this processor is running with 12MB of shared L2 cache in this laptop an with 2.53GHz clock speed rate upward and a 1066 MHz front side bus.

Aside from the Q9000 chip, there are many other impressive features in the new Acer notebook that also include DDR3 memory of 4GB, an 18.4inch LCD, a 1/2TB SATA hard disk and a NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GT graphic card.

Aside from the Q9000, Intel is also release four more mobile processors, while AMD will debut its Phenom II processors publicly at CES next month. This new processor from AMD is already available for pre-orders and it runs at up to 3GHz of speed with an 8MB cache.

Intel E8600 surpasses 6 GHz on DFI P35 board

Intel's highest-clocked Wolfdale CPU, the E8600 hasn't even been officially introduced and it is already making waves in more Eastern parts of the world with its overclocking capabilities. Backed by a system consisting of a DFI LP UT P35 motherboard, 4GB of DDR2 memory and a Radeon HD 4870 card, and a big bucket of liquid nitrogen, the 3.33 GHz-clocked Core 2 Duo E8600 was able to reach a top speed of 6000.2 MHz and later on 6146.9 MHz.

Achieved by the guys at coolaler.com, the 6.14 GHz mark was possible by taking the processors' FSB (front side bus) all the way up to 614 MHz (the multiplier being of 10), from the 'standard' 333 MHz. These E0 revision Core 2 Duos are looking good
already.
























source:tcmagazine

Intel fined $25m

Intel has been fined $25m (26bn Won) by the South Korean Fair Trade commission for breaching fair trade rules.

The chipmaker was found guilty of offering unfair subsidies to Samsung and Trigem Computer Inc if they promised to only buy Intel chips and froze out rival AMD.

But Intel dismissed the charges. Bruce Sewell, Intel general counsel, said the company was disappointed and "completely disagreed" with the verdict. The company is considering appealing the decision. Sewell said he did not feel regulators took full account of the evidence the chip giant offered.

Intel faces similar accusations in Europe where the European Commission is investigating the company's relationship with retailers. Back in February Competition Commission officials raided Intel and Dixons Store Group offices in Germany and the UK looking for evidence of unfair practises.

New York's Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is also investigating Intel, as well as AMD, over how they price their chips and how their chip exclusivity agreements with partners work.
© The Register

Intel delays next-gen integrated chipsets to fix video bug

When does an Intel chipset launch? When it's first mentioned by the company in public? The next time? The time after that? The 'Eaglelake' chipset family has been discussed by Intel on several occasions, but it'll apparently be truly launched next month.

The Eaglelake line - aka the 4 series - comprises the P45, P43, G45, G43, Q45 and Q43, and will be formally launched at the Computex show, held in Taipei in early June.

No great surprise there: Intel has already confirmed a Q2 launch date, and Computex is the customary location for launches of this kind.

More interestingly, the chips will go out to motherboard makers in the third week of June, industry moles have told local newssite DigiTimes, which probably means mobo availability in July.

That's for discrete, 'P' parts - integrated, 'G' chipsets could arrive up to three weeks further down the track thanks to a glitch in GPU hardware that decodes the VC1 hi-def video codec, the site claims. Ditto the enterprise-oriented, 'Q' parts, which are being delayed pending a fix for a Virtualisation Technology bug.

The Eaglake series is designed to be PCI Express 2.0 compliant and support 1333MHz DDR 3 memory. Some integrated versions will be able to host DisplayPort monitor connectors.

© The Register.

Dual-core Atoms not launching for a while?

We've been hearing talk about dual-core versions of Intel's new Atom processors for some time now, and we even saw specifications leak out last month. Supposedly, Intel has a 1.87GHz, 300-series dual-core Atom up its sleeve. The chip will be able to run as many as four threads at the same time, thanks to simultaneous multi-threading.

Sub-notebooks or low-end desktops boasting that particular chip might not come out anytime soon, though. Fuad Abazovic over at Fudzilla says he talked with folks who plan to produce Atom-based mobile and desktop systems, and he was told that dual-core Atoms won't show up until at least the fourth quarter of this year. Those chips are said to have power envelopes of only 8W, though, so they could theoretically slip into sub-notebooks.

This report comes in the wake of another that quoted Asus CEO Jerry Shen as saying Atom chips won't be widely available until the third quarter. Intel has also owned up to the fact that Atom demand is higher than expected, although the company hasn't mentioned shortages.

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...

Second-gen AMD 790FX motherboard pictured

One major downside of current motherboards based on AMD's 790FX chispet is the SB600 south bridge, which is getting long in the tooth and suffers from lackluster PCI and SATA performance. We've been expecting 790FX motherboard based on a new south bridge since the 790FX launch, and the folks at Fudzilla have nabbed a picture and some specifications for a 790FX mobo with an "SB750" south bridge.

This "Hawkfish" motherboard is a reference AMD design, Fudzilla says, and it features four PCI Express x16 slots, one PCIe x4 slot, only a single PCI slot, six 300MB/s Serial ATA ports, one IDE port, and a "4+1" pulse width modulation design. The six SATA ports can handle RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 10, as well. On the cooling front, the north bridge chip is actively cooled with a small fan, although retail offerings may end up different—after all, original reference 790FX designs had the same cooler.

In an older report, the same site claims the SB750 south bridge will have an "OverDrive 3.0" feature that will somehow aid overclocking in Phenom CPUs. The report explains, "AMD demoed a board with the SB750, which struggled to overlock the CPU to 3GHz, but once the overclocking feature was enabled the same CPU had no problem reaching 3.2GHz."

Rumor: Next AMD mobile chips to be slow, power-hungry

AMD may have a tough time nabbing design wins when it introduces its Puma notebook platform later this year. TG Daily quotes several sources, including Taiwanese moles and AMD insiders, as saying Puma will fail to match the power efficiency and CPU performance of rival Intel platforms.

According to TG Daily's report, the Puma platform's Griffin processor "will not be able to touch" Intel's Core 2 Duo in terms of performance. Power efficiency may leave something to be desired, as well. "It seems that AMD is in trouble and created a processor that actually consumes more power than its predecessor," the report states bluntly.

Luckily for AMD, the alleged strength of Puma's 780-series integrated chipset could be an asset. AMD reportedly harnessed TSMC's latest production line in order to make the mobile 780 as power-efficient as possible, and the chipset's graphics core is expected to significantly outperform Intel's next mobile IGP. TG Daily claims AMD will advertise Puma as a "balanced" platform, with lower CPU performance but better graphics performance than Centrino 2.

AMD stated back in March at the CeBIT trade show that Puma-based notebooks will launch in June. News stories from the same time frame suggest those systems may be priced as low as $699.

AMD launches ‘business class’ Phenom, Athlon chips

AMD on Monday announced “business class” versions of its Phenom and Athlon processors for the commercial markets. The big pitch: PC manufacturers will maintain AMD’s business class systems for 24 months to ensure that systems aren’t phased out before they are deployed.

The chipmaker (all AMD resources) is angling to differentiate itself from Intel in the commercial markets and says that stability of platform is important to public sector purchases as well as enterprises.

Hal Speed, AMD’s marketing architect, said that ensuring longevity of supply is critical for desktop deployments because sometimes the life of the PC cycle can undercut the time to deploy them. Speed also noted that AMD upped its warranty from one year to three years for its business class systems. “We were looking to remove complexity,” said Speed. “IT departments don’t like change.”

AMD is looking to assure corporate buyers that its systems will have some longevity to accommodate longer PC buying cycles. Since these systems have up to a 24 month lifecycle companies won’t have to change disk images of their desktops.

Among other components of AMD’s business class effort:

• Phenom X3 triple-core and X4 quad-core processors are featured as well as X2 dual-core processors.
• OEMs can choose AMD 780V chipsets, ATI Radeon HD 3000 graphics or non-AMD graphics and chipsets.
• AMD is introducing five new motherboards for system builders that will have at least 18 months longevity.
• Business class commercial notebooks will be available in the second half.

As for OEM support, HP will have its HP Compaq dc5850 Business PC available Monday. Dell will use AMD’s business class chips in its Optiplex 740 systems and Lenovo and Fujitsu are also on board.

It’s unclear whether this business class effort will make a difference. For instance, if you were initiating a PC upgrade cycle today AMD’s 24 months of stability would be a selling point. However, there are diminishing returns after a year.

source:http://blogs.zdnet.com/

Sun buys out x86 processor start-up Montalvo

A decent amount of ink has been spilled over Montalvo Systems, a Silicon Valley startup that aimed to take on Intel with an original, x86-compatible mobile microprocessor design. We recently reported that the start-up was running out of money and in a desperate search for investors. In an interesting twist, eWeek now says Sun Microsystems has gone and acquired the company.

eWeek goes on to quote a Sun spokeswoman who said the acquisition was completed on April 21 on undisclosed terms. Sun aims to integrate Montalvo into its Microelectronics business unit, and the spokeswoman explained, "We believe acquiring these assets will enhance the current and future products we are developing and expect them to contribute to future generations of Sun's microprocessor technology, which will in turn drive additional differentiation for Sun's Systems products."

Judging by information that leaked out three months ago, Montalvo was working on a power-efficient mobile CPU based on the same x86 instruction set architecture as Intel's products. Unlike Intel chips, though, the Montalvo processor is purportedly based on a mix of high- and low-performance cores, which the chip can turn on and off depending on processing load in order to save power.

Coupled with the terse public statement, Sun's decision to pocket Montalvo hints that the company could seek to start competing with Intel in the consumer space. Sun is no stranger to the microprocessor market, but its line of SPARC processors are aimed at high-performance servers and aren't Intel-compatible.

Larrabee Team Is Focused On Rasterization

"Tom Forsyth, a well respected developer inside Intel's Larrabee project, has spoken to dispel rumors that the Larrabee architecture is ignoring rasterization, and in fact claims that the new GPU will perform very well with current DirectX and OpenGL titles. The recent debate between rasterization and ray tracing in the world of PC games has really been culminating around the pending arrival of Intel's discrete Larrabee GPU technology. Game industry luminaries like John Carmack, Tim Sweeney and Cevat Yerli have chimed in on the discussion saying that ray tracing being accepted as the primary rendering method for games is unlikely in the next five years."

AMD announces new 45W Athlon X2 processors

All eyes are set on AMD's triple- and quad-core processors these days, but the company is still squeezing some life out of its dual-core offerings. As a matter of fact, AMD has added two new Athlon X2 processors to its lineup of desktop chips with 45W thermal envelopes, the Athlon X2 4450e and the Athlon X2 4050e. The former is clocked at 2.3GHz and the latter at 2.1GHz. Both feature 1MB of L2 cache, and the chips are based on AMD's 65nm process technology.

Unusually for newly announced processors, the two chips are already available for sale. Newegg currently sells the 4450e for $79.99 and the 4050e for $10 less. Both offerings are in stock right now.

Deal of the week: Two hard drives and a processor

We have three very enticing deals for you this week. Unsurprisingly, in light of the current state of storage prices, the first two are hard drives. Newegg is offering Western Digital's 640GB Caviar SE16 for only $109.99 with free shipping, and it has the 750GB Caviar SE16 model available for $134.99, also with free shipping. The former should be a little faster than the latter thanks to its higher platter density, but it's hard to argue with sub-20-cent-per-gigabyte pricing in either case (17 cents/GB for the 640GB and 18 cents/GB for the 750GB, to be exact).

Our third deal is Intel's Core 2 Duo E8400, which Newegg offers for an also-tantalizing $199.99 $189.99 with free shipping. We couldn't find better pricing anywhere on our price search engine for either this CPU or the aforementioned hard drive deals. Considering this processor was recently marked up to $250 and more because of tight availability, $200 shipped is a steal—especially when you take into account its 45nm core, 3GHz default clock speed, and overclocking potential. Check out our latest CPU review to see how the E8400 fares next to the latest chips out there.

Update: The E8400 is now listed at Newegg for $189.99 with free shipping.

AMD introduces bug-fix three-core Phenoms

AMD has rolled out a trio of tri-core processors, all revised versions of the Phenom X3 CPUs it introduced last month.

The new line-up comprises the 2.4GHz 8750, the 2.3GHz 8650 and the 2.1GHz 8450. They're priced at $195, $165 and $145, respectively.

All three contain 'B3' cores, an improved version of the 'B2' X3s released to PC makers less than a month ago. At the time, AMD provided benchmark numbers that indicated a small but significant performance boost over the B2 models.

For example, the 8650 yielded numbers up nine per cent on those produced by the 8600, despite identical specs beyond the core stepping.

AMD insisted the older core was "perfectly fine". But not so fine that the 8400, 8600 and 8700 haven't been kept on the chip maker's official price list. All three have been dropped to make room for the new versions.

AMD also introduced two low-power, 45W Athlon X2 chips, the 4450e and the 4050e, clocked at 2.3GHz and 2.1GHz, respectively.

Intel slashes desktop, server processor prices

Barely two weeks after the release of AMD's first B3 Phenom processors, Intel has reacted by applying rather substantial price cuts to a cross-section of its desktop and server processors. The cuts apply to both 45nm and 65nm offerings, and they cover 18 CPUs from the Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium, Celeron, and Xeon lineups.

Here's the list of affected processors with their specifications, their previous prices, and their new prices as of today:

Processor	Cores	Speed	Cache	FSB	Old price	New price
Core 2 Quad Q6700	4	2.66GHz	8MB	1066MHz	$530	$266
Core 2 Quad Q6600	4	2.4GHz	8MB	1066MHz	$266	$224
Core 2 Duo E8300	2	2.83GHz	6MB	1333MHz	-	$163
Core 2 Duo E7200	2	2.53GHz	3MB	1066MHz	-	$133
Core 2 Duo E6850	2	3GHz	4MB	1333MHz	$266	$183
Core 2 Duo E4600	2	2.4GHz	2MB	800MHz	$133	$113
Pentium E2200	2	2.2GHz	1MB	800MHz	$84	$74
Pentium E2180	2	2GHz	1MB	800MHz	$74	$64
Celeron E1400	2	2GHz	512KB	800MHz	-	$53
Celeron E1200	2	1.6GHz	512KB	800MHz	$53	$43
Celeron 440	1	2GHz	512KB	800MHz	$53	$44
Celeron 430	1	1.8GHz	512KB	800MHz	$44	$34
Celeron 570	1	2.66GHz	1MB	533MHz	-	$134
Celeron 560	1	2.13GHz	1MB	533MHz	$134	$107
Celeron 550	1	2GHz	1MB	533MHz	$107	$86
Xeon X3230	4	2.66GHz	8MB	1066MHz	$530	$266
Xeon X3220	4	2.4GHz	8MB	1066MHz	$266	$224
Xeon 3085	2	3GHz	4MB	1333MHz	$266	$188

The price drops should put renewed pressure on AMD both at the low end, where dual-core Pentiums gnaw at the heels of Athlon 64 X2s, and in the mid-range, where the Core 2 Quad Q6600 looks like a dangerous competitor to the $235 Phenom 9850 Black Edition. The cheaper Core 2 Duos also ought to spoil things for upcoming triple-core Phenoms to some extent, although it's a little too early to see how these chips will match up just yet—stay tuned for a review.

45nm Phenoms to hit 3.2GHz and more?

Despite having displayed a 3GHz Phenom system at its Technology Analyst Day last summer, AMD hasn't yet commercialized a Phenom processor clocked higher than 2.5GHz. What's more, we had trouble pushing AMD's 2.5GHz chip over the 2.9GHz mark in our overclocking tests. However, a report by Fudzilla hints that Phenom's 45nm descendants may finally unbridle the architecture's potential.

Citing internal AMD data, Fudzilla reports that AMD's 45nm Deneb core (the forthcoming desktop variant of Shanghai) will be able to achieve clock speeds of 3.2GHz—and perhaps even more. AMD itself has stayed mute on 45nm launch clock speeds, although it disclosed last week that its 45nm chips are due to become available in large quantities in the fourth quarter of this year.

As Fudzilla points out, the fourth-quarter time frame matches Intel's launch schedule for its next-generation Nehalem chips. Current signs point to Nehalem chips being significantly faster clock-for-clock than existing Core 2 Quads and also having the ability to run at 3.2GHz, so Nehalem should turn out to be a formidable opponent to both Deneb and Shanghai.

AMD gained some ground against Intel in late 2007

Despite delays to its quad-core chips, the TLB erratum fiasco, and Intel's continued performance edge, AMD managed to grow its market share in the fourth quarter of last year, according to numbers from market research firm iSuppli.

In a report posted earlier today, iSuppli says AMD's share of the overall microprocessor market climbed from 13.9% in the third quarter of 2007 to 14.2% in the fourth quarter. Interestingly, AMD appears to have taken those share points from lesser players in the industry. Intel's piece of the CPU pie grew from 78.8% to 78.9% over the same time period, while the aggregate market share of smaller microprocessor makers slumped from 7.3% to 6.9%.

Of course, even with the 0.3-point rise, AMD's Q4 '07 market share was significantly lower than in the fourth quarter of 2006. According to iSuppli, AMD held 15.7% of the overall CPU market in Q4 '07, while Intel had 75.8%, and other players had an aggregate 8.4%.

CPUs GPUs Mobos and chipsets Multimedia Cases and power Storage Systems Miscellany Forums Overclocking Intel's Xeon X3320 processor

We PC enthusiasts have been co-opting enterprise-class hardware for our own personal systems for years now. We got our first taste of the creamy smoothness of SMP on dual-socket workstation boards long before you could get two cores conveniently packaged on the same chip. Tempted by lightning-fast access times and 10K-RPM spindle speeds, we adopted Western Digital's Raptor hard drive. And who can forget AMD's Toledo-based dual-core Opterons—overclocking marvels compatible with the same 939-pin socket as Athlon 64 X2 desktop chips. I've had what was a relatively inexpensive Opteron 165 designed to run at 1.8GHz happily chugging away at 2.4GHz on a standard desktop motherboard for a couple of years now.

Although they share the same architecture and performance characteristics as their desktop counterparts, server and workstation processors like the Opteron typically undergo additional validation testing and run at lower operating voltages. In a sense, chips that make the grade for the enterprise world are the best of the breed. That doesn't guarantee overclocking success, but it at least hints at untapped potential. When that potential plugs into a standard desktop motherboard loaded with overclocking options, we just can't resist.

It's no wonder, then, that Intel's Xeon X3320 caught my eye recently. This LGA775 chip features a 45nm Yorkfield core running at 2.5GHz with 6MB of L2 cache, making it the Xeon equivalent of the Core 2 Quad Q9300. What's more, while the Q9300 has been in short supply of late, the X3320 has been more consistently available at roughly the same price.

Few things make us happier than forcing normally conservative enterprise-class hardware to jump through flaming enthusiast hoops, so we scored an off-the-shelf Xeon X3320 retail box from the folks at NCIX to see what kind of overclocking headroom we could find. Read on for the surprising results.

Penryn dons a suit
The key to overclocking server and workstation processors is finding ones compatible with standard desktop motherboards. AMD and Intel both employ different socket designs for some of their enterprise-class chips, and the server and workstation motherboards they slip into tend to be completely devoid of overclocking options. Fortunately, Intel's Xeon 3000 series uses the same LGA775 package as desktop Core 2 chips, so you should be able to plug them into any motherboard that's compatible with their desktop equivalents.

read full article at techreport

AMD's Phenom X3 processors Review

Good things often come in powers of two, especially in computers. Two, four, eight, or sixteen copies of a common resource—rendering pipelines, megabytes of memory, processors, what have you—are instantly recognizable quantities that will most assuredly lead to additional goodness.

But three? Not so much.

Oh, sure, you have the odd exceptions, like a three-disk RAID 5 array or three-way SLI, but these are exceptions, and they are quite literally odd. Even less common is the case of three CPUs. I've been racking my brains for a few days trying to come up with past examples of three-way multiprocessor configurations in PC history, and I've been coming up blank. Now that I've said that, some old-timer will post in the comments about the Univac EP-3333, to which he fed punch cards back in the day. Bully for you, Methuselah, but my point remains: triple-processor configurations are exceptionally rare in the PC world.

They are, however, about to get a whole heckuva lot more common thanks to AMD's new triple-core Phenom X3 processors. These are essentially just quad-core chips with one core disabled, sacrificed for the cause of product segmentation. Can't you just hear millions of tiny transistors screaming out in pain and then going silent? The core-botomy has happy side-effects, though, not least of which is extending the Phenom lineup to under 150 bucks.

The advent of these triple-core specimens raises some intriguing questions. Can AMD gain ground on Intel's very potent dual-core CPUs by disabling a core and slashing its prices? Will the Phenom's relatively low per-core performance be offset by the presence of a third core? What's the right tradeoff here? We've taken these questions as an excuse to run way too many benchmarks on the new Phenom X3 chips. Then we made up some answers. Keep reading to see what we found.

read full article:techreport