Some of you may not realize this but today marks the beginning of the end for the long running AMD K8 CPU. That’s right - today marks the day that we officially hear about the new AMD Phenom processors as well as the new AMD “SPIDER” platform. Thus - everything should be fine and dandy for AMD right? Well.. the early results are in and they’re not necessarily great for the company but more on that in a bit (maybe the recent infusion of cash will help AMD after all!).
First off - what exactly is the AMD SPIDER platform? It’s a new “enthusiast” platform bringing together three new core components from AMD:
OK.. so those are the elements to SPIDER.. but what the heck is the AMD Phenom 9000 Series Quad-Core processor? Well think of the Phenom (and don’t laugh at the name.. man I thought Celeron was bad..) as an evolutionary step from the K8 platform. AMD likes to call the Phenom a “true quad core processor” as opposed to the first incarnations of quad core processors from Intel where they simply slapped together two dual core processors on a single die and called it a quad core processor. OK.. so that might have been a little bit of a cheap from Intel but I still count four processors there (though yes it produces a sub-optimal solution). Ok.. so onto the features of the Phenom processor:
- Native quad core design
- 65 nm manufacturing process
- Enhanced Power Management technology
- Integrated memory controller
So what’s coming out first? After much speculation,AMD is only releasing initially a 2.2 GHz and 2.3GHz part - *shakes head*. Thus for the here and now, the new AMD Phenom is available only as a quad core processor. There will eventually be a dual core version as well as a triple-core Phenom but right now - it’s all about fours. This also means that if you want a dual core AMD processor, you’ll have to stick with the K8 lineage for now.. at least until 2008.
So with that said, here are some initial reviews of the Phenom processor.
First up, we have Anandtech’s look at the Phenom here and here is the verdict:
If you were looking for a changing of the guard today it’s just not going to happen. Phenom is, clock for clock, slower than Core 2 and the chips aren’t yet yielding well enough to boost clock speeds above what Intel is capable of. While AMD just introduced its first 2.2GHz and 2.3GHz quad-core CPUs today, Intel previewed its first 3.2GHz quad-core chips. We were expecting Intel to retain the high end performance crown, but also expected AMD to chip away at the lower end of the quad-core market - today’s launch confirms that Intel is still the king of the quad-core market.
Here’s ExtremeTech’s preview of the Phenom and then a comparison of Intel’s QX9770 vs the AMD Phenom 9900 here. Here’s a quote from the preview article:
The question used to be—will AMD’s new CPUs help them regain the performance crown they lost after Intel’s launch of the Core 2 Duo? The answer is clearly “no.”
PC World published their first tests here and find:
With no way to regain the CPU performance crown, AMD has been trying to focus the media’s attention on its peripheral technologies. This isn’t all misdirection, since performance in games often relies more heavily on a system’s GPU than its CPU.
Finally, the folks at the TechReport have a look at the new AMD 790FX chipset here. Here’s what they find:
In the end, the 790FX is a bandwidth-rich new north bridge chip held back by a dated south bridge and flaky motherboard implementations. AMD will have to do better if it expects the Spider platform to take off with enthusiasts. In its current state, we simply can’t recommend the 790FX
Not the greatest initial news for AMD’s new platform and processors.. but hey - it’s still early right? One thing is for sure - this will at the very least keep Intel on its toes.. for a little bit at least.
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