Kingston’s First 2GHz Memory for Intel Core i7 Platforms

Kingston detailed its family of triple-channel memory module kits designed for next-generation Intel Core i7 processor and Intel X58 chipset-based platforms. Apparently, Kingston will be the first company to offer end-users 2GHz memory modules designed for Intel Core i7 chips.

“Kingston is excited to bring the fastest DDR3 triple-channel memory products to market as we are the first to deliver 2000MHz gaming kits of three with reduced voltage. All of our triple-channel kits can be overclocked manually or by using XMP-ready profiles. The 2GHz modules have been tested to support up to that speed on Asus P6T Deluxe motherboards while the Intel DX58SO motherboards have been tested up to 1600MHz,” said Mark Tekunoff, senior technology manager at Kingston.

Kingston’s DDR3 triple-channel memory kit family looks as follows:

• Kingston HyperX PC3-16000 3GB with XMP: 2000MHz clock-speed, CL9 9-9-27 latency settings, 1.65V voltage (KHX16000D3K3/3GX) – $334
• Kingston HyperX PC3-14900 3GB with XMP: 1866MHz clock-speed, CL9 9-9-27 latency settings, 1.65V voltage (KHX14900D3K3/3GX) – $317
• Kingston HyperX PC3-14400 3GB with XMP: 1800MHz clock-speed, CL9 9-9-27 latency settings, 1.65V voltage (KHX14400D3K3/3GX) – $312
• Kingston HyperX PC3-12800 3GB with XMP: 1600MHz clock-speed, CL8 8-8-24 latency settings, 1.65V voltage (KHX12800D3LLK3/3GX) – $285
• Kingston HyperX PC3-11000 3GB with XMP: 1375MHz clock-speed, CL7 7-7-20 latency settings, 1.65V voltage (KHX11000D3LLK3/3GX ) – $192
• Kingston ValueRAM PC3-10666 6GB: 1333MHz clock-speed, CL9 9-9 latency settings, 1.5V voltage (KVR1333D3N9K3/6G) – $240
• Kingston ValueRAM PC3-10666 3GB: 1333MHz clock-speed, CL9 9-9 latency settings, 1.5V voltage (KVR1333D3N9K3/3G) – $132
• Kingston ValueRAM PC3-8500 6GB: 1066MHz clock-speed, CL7 7-7 latency settings, 1.5V voltage (KVR1066D3N7K3/6G) – $240
• Kingston ValueRAM PC3-8500 3GB: 1066MHz clock-speed, CL7 7-7 latency settings, 1.5V voltage (KVR1066D3N7K3/3G) – $142

With 2GHz DDR3 memory modules with relatively low voltage settings designed for Intel Core i7 central processing units in the lineup, Kingston has all chances to substantially boost its sales and become more popular among enthusiasts seeking for maximum performance possible. source:xbitlabs.com

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.

AMD Phenom™ X4 9000 Series Quad-Core Processors

AMD Phenom™ X4 9000 Series Quad-Core Processors and AMD Phenom™X3 8000 Series Triple-Core Processors Product Brief
INCREDIBLE PERFORMANCE

The ultimate megatasking experience. Featuring true multi-core design and award-winning AMD64 technology with Direct Connect Architecture, AMD Phenom™ processors deliver the ultimate megatasking experience by providing direct and rapid information flow between processor cores, main memory, and graphics and video accelerators. AMD Phenom™ processors have the technology to break through the most challenging processing loads. AMD Phenom™ processors feature low latency access to main memory for amazingly rapid response and phenomenal system performance. AMD Phenom™ processors were designed for megatasking—running multiple, multi-threaded applications. Surge through the most demanding processing loads, including advanced multitasking, critical business productivity, advanced visual design and modeling, serious gaming, and visually stunning digital media and entertainment.

Phenomenal performance with advanced processor design. The AMD Phenom™ processors are the most advanced processors for true multitasking with true quad-core design. Don’t get bogged down by non-native quad-core processors and obsolete front side bus architectures. With an integrated memory controller and shared L3 cache, AMD Phenom™ processors have low-latency access to main memory for amazingly rapid system response and phenomenal system performance.

Blast through performance bottlenecks. All AMD Phenom™ processors feature AMD64 with Direct Connect Architecture to blast through performance bottlenecks. Award winning HyperTransport™ 3.0 technology just got faster, providing support for full 1080p high-definition video and extreme total system bandwidth.

Shatter the memory barrier. Superior AMD64 architecture offers direct access to DDR2 memory. Enjoy virtually unlimited memory options with AMD64 technology and 64-bit Windows Vista.® Shatter the memory barrier with AMD Phenom™ processors and 64-bit Windows Vista.®

INTENSELY VISUAL

Experience Windows Vista.® Harness the power of Windows Vista® with the AMD Phenom™ processors. AMD Phenom™ processors divide and conquer the most complex tasks with true multi-core design. Enjoy the ultimate megatasking experience on Windows Vista.® Enjoy virtually unlimited memory options with AMD64 technology and 64-bit Windows Vista.® Shatter the memory barrier with AMD Phenom™ processors and Windows Vista.®

STRIKINGLY EFFICIENT

Strikingly efficient Cool‘n’Quiet™ 2.0 technology.With the next generation of award-winning Cool‘n’Quiet™ technology, Cool‘n’Quiet™ 2.0 technology reduces heat and noise so you can experience amazing performance without distraction. Combined with core enhancements that can improve overall power savings, AMD Phenom™ processors deliver seamless multitasking and optimum energy efficiency. Work, play, talk, and share a PC that’s seen, not heard.

Purchase with Confidence
Founded in 1969, AMD has shipped more than 240 million PC processors worldwide. Customers can depend on AMD64 processors and AMD for compatibility and reliability. AMD processors undergo extensive testing to help ensure compatibility with Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, Windows NT®, Windows 2000, as well as Linux and other PC operating systems. AMD works collaboratively with Microsoft and other ecosystem partners to achieve compatibility of AMD processors and to expand the capability of software and hardware products leveraging AMD64 technology. AMD conducts rigorous research, development, and validation to help ensure the continued integrity and performance of its products.
source:amd.com

AMD Phenom X3 processor family performance

AMD known for its fighting underdog spirit recently relaunched the Phenom with the B3-stepping, which we looked at just recently. The B3-stepping has not exactly breathed new life into the Phenom processors, but it has given AMD a chance to regroup and retarget its products, forcedly aiming at cheaper and more affordable Intel processors.

The latest processor series from AMD is a little unusual as it makes use of not one, two, or even four cores, but rather three! That rsquo;s right, the new Phenom X3 carries an unusual core configuration, and I guess the question most of you are probably asking yourselves (as we did) is why? The most reasonable explanation is that this still allows AMD to sell Phenom X4 processors with a defective core, minimizing their loss. Second, it gives some leverage for AMD to compete with Intel rsquo;s dual-core processors, being able to pull the "additional core" card.

The Phenom X3 family consists of three new processors: the 8450 (2.10GHz), 8650 (2.30GHz) and 8750 (2.40GHz), all of which we are testing here today.

View: AMD Phenom X3 processor family performance @ TechSpot

Read full story...

more: News source

AMD Must Double Processor Market Share to Survive

Advanced Micro Devices needs to more than double its share of the microprocessor market to survive, according to a brief filed by the company's lawyers in its antitrust lawsuit against Intel.


At the end of 2007, AMD had 13 percent of the processor market, "less than half of what it requires to operate long-term as a sustainable business," the brief said, explaining that Intel's alleged efforts to shut the company out of the processor business had largely succeeded.


"Measured on a revenue share basis, AMD made little progress growing its slice of the pie," it said.

View Full Article: PC World

more: News source

AMD now has 'more than allegations' against Intel

As Intel and AMD near the end of the discovery process in their US antitrust battle, the two companies have begun fighting over whose testimony will make it to the big dance. In a legal filing, AMD has pointed to the employees at some of the technology world's biggest names - HP, Dell, IBM and others - who it thinks will help make its case. Intel has responded in kind, and it's now up to a judge to decide on the strength of the vendors' arguments.

Following a dispute over the number of depositions allowed in the case, Special Master Vincent Poppiti appointed to hear evidence from both companies ordered up a pair of "preliminary pre-trial briefs." Well, it's those very briefs which have now been turned over to the press.

AMD's beefy filing claims to offer new evidence to support the original accusations filed back in 2005, at the U.S. District Court in Delaware.

"The current brief reflects that the allegations are more than allegations," said AMD spokesman, Michael Silverman. "The evidence exists."

Unfortunately, most of this purported evidence has been redacted from the public version of the brief. Both companies had previously signed a confidentiality order to guard trade secrets, making for long, tantalizing passages buried behind this kind of nonsense and more of it in AMD's latest 108-page summary.

What can be gleaned from the filings are the companies that AMD claims have been influenced by Intel's anti-competitive behavior.

AMD fingers a laundry-list of major OEMs: Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lenovo, Gateway, Acer, Sony, NEC, Toshiba, Fujitsu, and Hitachi as holding anti-competitive, exclusive arrangements with Intel. It also calls for testimony from smaller builders such as Supermicro and Rackable. All the sections covering these vendors are heavily censored, however, making it hard to grasp anything beyond that AMD claims to have acquired specific evidence of misconduct.

For instance, in the section about Dell:

full artifcle:http://www.theregister.co.uk/

How to destroy 60 hard drives an hour

Disk drives are extraordinarily resilient. I've seen one that had been run over, dropped in a toilet and then thrown out of the window of a seven-storey office block. It looked unusable. Kroll Ontrack managed to recover virtually all the data on it by drying it and taking it apart.

Hard disk crusher

Clam shell casings are very strong and deleting data doesn't work effectively, and passing magnets over the disk isn't sure enough. Even repeated writing of zeroes isn't necessarily effective and certainly takes a long time.

So, if you really, seriously, want to render your hard drive unreadable and haven't used major league encryption of all its contents then what can you do?

Drill the little sucker right through its spindle heart is one answer.

EDR Solutions sells a machine to do just this. It's inaccurately called the Hard Disk Crusher but it doesn't crush the drive. Instead it drills through the spindles and this creates ripples in the platters rendering them effectively unreadable.

It can destroy the readability of disk drives at the rate of 60 an hour, taking 10 seconds once the disk is clamped in place. One EDR customer rendered 800 unreadable in just one day.

The machines costs $11,500, which includes a one-year warranty (return to factory).

More information here

Next-Gen PC Concepts Include Laser Screens, Tactile Interfaces, Glossiness

The Microsoft-sponsored Next-Gen PC Design Competition asks its contestants to design the next generation of Windows-based PCs and judges the resulting entries on innovation, user experience, aesthetics and whether it can ever be manufactured. This year's contest focused on PC designs that "help people do what they feel passionate about." Public voting is over and the winners will be announced sometime this month, but even if we can't participate in the voting process, a lot of these concepts are worth gawking at. Check out some weird and interesting prototypes after the jump.

ngpcentry1

Palette is a hardware system design concept that designated for digital artist, painter, design visualizer and people with passion in visual arts. The system were designed based on the background of basic painting behavior and its physiology activities. Palette is designed to have connectivity with other devices such main PC system, Main monitor or other wireless peripherals. connectivity between them are wireless and the user interface screen surface of the palette is using photo-optic visual sensor with color recognition as its main advantage.

ngpcentry2

A biometric scan of a finger will recognize users and display all saved personal files and settings. As an optional security feature, users will be capable of enabling a voice recognition program with a library distinct voice commands. Once access has been granted, cutting-edge laser technology will display mid-air 2D and 3D images with pristine quality on a dual-head display, ideal for designers.
Bloom’s two “side branches” house the PC’s sound system and assist in the display of both 2D and 3D images. The branches allow the displays to range from 15 to 24 inches in size with a maximum viewing angle of 80 degrees. Users can effortlessly choose from a variety of display sizes and viewing angles by re-positioning the branches.

ngpcentry8

Momenta, the neck worn PC also captures the best and most exciting moments of your life. Ever thought, "Man I wish I had that on tape!" When everybody is laughing themselves to tears, Momenta has already captured the previous 5 minutes from its rolling buffer and continues to record until you tell it to stop. Triggered by increased heart rate, it captures those hilarious or exciting moments that are usually lost forever. Whether it's an exciting sports experience, a funny social scene, the scene of an accident, etc. you can capture it and share it.

ngpcentry7

ZEN is a system of software and hardware specifically designed for the visually impaired. It is comprised of a hardware called the ‘Sandbox PC’ and ZEN edition operating system which work together to create a computing environment that can be used with eyes closed. The innovation of ZEN is embedded in its name. ZEN is for ‘Z-axis Enabled,’ meaning it is a truly interactive 3D computer. The Sandbox PC features Active Surface, an electronic surface that can take different physical shape and can be manipulated by the user. You can read Braille text on it, make out windows, icons, and different textures. You can press into the surface, or scratch it with your fingers. All input output is made with the sense of touch. ZEN software uses a Tactile User Interface (TUI). The visually impaired are a negated market. It is fitting, then, to bring them to light using the negated sense of touch, by introducing a negated dimension of depth.

[Next-Gen Design Competition

Intel puts another foot into 10GbE

Interop 2008 With a sweep of the Interop 2008 Las Vegas show floor, it's clear that vendors are confident that 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology is moving beyond the early adoption phase and into more storage networks and data centers.

Intel is among the big vendors at the conference embracing the transition, today announcing a stepping-stone server adapter that provides 10Gb throughput over standard copper cables. That means you can go bloody fast without having to install expensive fiber optic cabling.

Intel's new dual-speed 10GBASE-T adapter supports both 1GbE and 10GbE throughput for data migration operations. The 10 Gigabit AT Server Adapter works over short-range connections, with a 100m (328 feet) network transmission over CAT 6a cable, and 55m (180 feet) over CAT 6 cable.

Dell is to offer the device with its PowerEdge product line.

The server adapter will ship by the end of June, priced at $1,000, which is cheap as these things go.

The card should land in the same month as Intel's 10Gb AF DA Dual Port server adapter, announced last April

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.

Deal of the week: Intel's Core 2 Quad Q9300

Intel's most affordable 45nm Core 2 Quad processor took a while to show up at online retailers, but it seems to be widely available now, and at lower prices. Today, we see Mwave is offering the CPU for only $279. The processor is in stock, and it comes retail-boxed with a three-year warranty and a stock cooler.

Those who've read our review of the Core 2 Quad Q9300 will know the chip runs at 2.5GHz with a 1333MHz front-side bus and a total of 6MB of L2 cache. Thanks largely to its 45nm Penryn underpinnings, the Q9300's thermal envelope is also a very reasonable 95W (reasonable as far as quad-core chips go, anyway).

Unlike its predecessor—the Core 2 Quad Q6600—we found that the Q9300 managed to keep up overall with higher-clocked dual-core models, yielding an excellent balance between good single-threaded performance and great mutli-threaded performance. We were able to overclock ours to a cool 3.26GHz with a voltage bump of only 0.025V, as well, which isn't half bad for a quad-core CPU.

Intel Steals AMD's Supercomputer Shopper

Cray and Intel announced today that they have established an R&D deal for research on next generation supercomputers. Cray Inc is one of the best supercomputer and high-performance computing manufacturer and mainly has been using AMD processors in its machines. Cray and Intel will be researching on the use of Larabee accelerators in supercomputers.

Larabee is Intel's next-generation GPGPU initiative, which is the cunning plan to use graphic cards to do other computing tasks than just showing graphics. GPU are known to have high-floating point processing capabilities and the industry has decided its time to use it for some math. AMD's ATI acquisition was on similar grounds and AMD today manufactures AMD Stream Processors that do the same thing. Nvidia with its CUDA is also doing a same thing.

AMD must be pretty sad that it hasn't been able to pull something similar with its Stream Processors. AMD Opteron has been pretty popular among supercomputer manufacturers due to scalability brought through HyperTransport architecture. Cray shares seem to have risen due to some excitement with AMD's chip availability, but I suspect its more to do with the Intel partnership.

Stream Processing are going to be the future of high-performance computing. Even on desktops, it'll be either be processors doing GPU work or GPU doing processors work sometime in the future.

AMD Phenoms hit compatibility glitch

IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS. Beleaguered chipster AMD, fresh from the upset of losing a five-year old exclusive deal with supercomputer maker Cray yesterday, is facing problems getting its 9750 and 9850 125W Phenom parts to work with the 780G chipset. The result is that some manufacturers are having trouble making the quad core parts work in their mobos.

The problem isn't AMD's fault of course, according to err, AMD, which says there are no problems using the 125W parts with the 790 chipset but that manufacturers are trying to build systems on the cheap by using 780G mobos.

"What people have done, mistakenly, is paired a 780G motherboard with the higher frequency Phenom - the 125-watt Phenom," Jake Whitman, an AMD spokesperson, told CNET. "Not all motherboard manufacturers have tweaked their boards to support a 125-watt TDP. We've never made claims that 780G motherboards are enthusiast-class motherboards." µ

CNET

AMD reveals open source client management tool

AMD TODAY GAVE OUT details about open source tools it hopes will quicken the take-up of the Distributed Management Task Force's (DMTF's) desktop and mobile architecture for system hardware (Dash) standard.

This is the microprocessor maker’s latest move to promote and push for open standards through the creation of a Dash software development kit (SDK), which it produced in coordination with IT management software supplier Raritan.

The company says that it hopes the new tools will bring down the price of desktop and notebook client management, by reducing the amount of time which has to be dedicated to development, and making interoperability a priority.

AMD has long claimed that its strategy is to take the open standards approach, saying that it is committed to standards that allow for choice in the market.

Intel, AMD’s rival, also made a commitment to comply with the DMTF’s Dash 1.0 draft interoperability specification to open standards, with its Vpro updates last August. µ

Intel boosts Atom production to avoid supply squeeze

Early demand for an Intel chip that’s being designed for small laptops and desktops is so much higher than anticipated, the company has been forced to ramp up pre-release production.

The new chip, code-named Diamondville, won’t be officially released until June but Intel has already been inundated with demands for early shipments, said company spokesman Bill Calder. He added that several PC makers plan to announce in June that they’re working on Diamondville-based products. Many of the products announced in June should ship in the third and fourth quarters of this year, Calder added.

“We had anticipated a certain amount of growth and ramp up,” Calder told Computerworld. “It’s better than anticipated. We’re adjusting and increasing output. We are meeting and will meet anticipated demand.”

Diamondville is part of Intel’s new 45 nanometer line of Atom chips. The company officially unveiled the low-power, newly architected Atom processor family at its Developer Forum in Shanghai on April 2. At the time, Intel unveiled five new processors, codenamed Silverthorne, which are aimed at the embedded and mobile Internet device markets.

The Diamondville chips are aimed at a different market and are slated to be formally announced next month.

A future version of Intel’s low-powered laptop—the Classmate PC—is slated to run an Atom processor. The small laptop, aimed at the education market, is part of the company’s so-called “netbook” category of computers, which consists of inexpensive, portable machines with small screens.

Dan Olds, an analyst with the Gabriel Consulting Group, said he’s not surprised that there’s so much demand for chips that will run small form factor PCs.

“There’s a strong and growing market for ultra-portable systems,” said Olds. “Travel warriors and others have a desire for a small system. Heavy work will be done on other machines. A small laptop would be easy to take with you. You’ll use it mainly for Internet access. It makes even more sense when you consider how much stuff you can do with web services.”

Calder said he doesn’t foresee Intel having trouble increasing the production of the chips to meet the unanticipated demand. He noted that the Atom chips are so small that 2,500 can fit on a single wafer. That means a decent boost in wafer production could dramatically affect the number of Atom processors produced.

“This is good for Intel,” said Olds. “Not enough production is a problem they can deal with. Not enough demand is a different and worse problem.”

This story is excerpted from Computerworld

New 3.06GHz iMac features special-run Intel chip

The 45nm, 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo processor inside Apple's newly updated $2,199 iMac may very well not show up in other systems. Electronista says Intel has confirmed that, once again, it has produced a custom CPU for Apple's latest creation.

The iMac line normally uses regular mobile Core 2 Duos, but the 3.06GHz chip in the latest 24" system is a special, otherwise-unannounced model with a 55W thermal envelope. Today's fastest official mobile Core 2—the Core 2 Extreme X9000—runs at 2.8GHz and has a 44W thermal envelope. Intel allegedly plans a 3.06GHz mobile Core 2 Extreme X9100 for its Centrino 2 platform, but that chip will also have a 44W envelope, and it presumably won't come out until June. Electronista says the new iMacs' motherboards are still based on current Santa Rosa technology.

This isn't the first time Intel has given Apple special treatment. As Electronista points out, the Mac Pro was the first workstation to play host to a 3GHz quad-core Xeon last year, and the MacBook Air includes a special Core 2 Duo chip that uses the same, smaller package as future Centrino 2 chips, but with 65nm silicon.

Atom chips to be in tight supply until summer

Intel may have launched its Atom low-cost, low-power processor a couple of months ago, but systems based on the chips may not become widely available until some time this summer. That's the gist of a report by DailyTech that cites statements from both Asus and Intel.

According to an Intel spokesman quoted by the site, Intel is seeing "better-than-anticipated" demand for Atom CPUs. The spokesman didn't quote any numbers, but in a separate interview, Asus CEO Jerry Shen chimed in by saying he doesn't believe Atom supply will catch up with demand until the third quarter of this year. In reference to his firm's popular Eee PC sub-notebook, Shen added, "Unlike our competitors, we use both Intel Atom processors and Intel Celeron M processors, so this will give us a stronger advantage in guaranteeing shipments."

Shen may have a point regarding the competition. So far, most of the "Eee killers" we've heard about from other companies—such as ECS, MSI, and potentially Acer and Dell—harness Atom processors. Meanwhile, Atom-based Eee PCs should roll out next month, but current models all feature Celeron M chips.

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.