14 DAY TRIAL // AMD has been pretty protective about its new 4x4 line, especially since INTEL released Kentsfield CPU. Ok, I get it: you have to be secretive; it?s the company policy, especially since in this type of business everything is about competition. You could think that fighting INTEL on its own ground (since the Core 2 Duo launch) made AMD a little paranoid. But you couldn?t be more wrong.
AMD learns not only from its mistakes, but also from INTEL?s ones. And - in order to close the performance gap - you have to plan every new CPU launch like your life depended on it. As we already know, quad cores from INTEL are still rare, because the factories producing them cannot sustain the demand on the market. If that weren?t the case, why do you think INTEL didn?t officially mass release Kentsfield until several days ago when we all know the CPU was ready 3 months ago.
On the other hand, AMD?s 4x4 architecture is also ready. And so is the demand for it, most of it coming from Dell. In this case though, AMD plans to produce as much CPUs as it can, before it will release them into the hungry market, in order to sustain the demand, at least until things cool down in early January.
1207 LGA sockets will be used for these CPUs incorporating 2 Windsor cores with 2MB level 2 cache each. Still using 90nm process, this roughly equals 250W TDP, which exceeds Kentsfield?s TDP by a large margin. There will be 3 CPUs available: FX-70 @ 2.6GHz, FX-72 @ 2.8GHz and FX-74 @ 3.0GHz. Later, the FX-74 @ 3.2GHz model will be available probably ending 90nm production. Actual FX, using only 2 cores, will phase-out by the end of this year.
As you know, neither 4x4 FX nor Kensfield are native quad core solutions. It?s more like 2 dual core chips glued together. But this is not the end of the story, at least not for AMD which has almost finished their first real quad core CPU, codename Agena. Using 65nm process and 3 levels of cache, it will be ready by the 3rd quarter of 2007 and it will use a modified form of 1207 LGA called AM2+. More info is still unavailable at this time, but AMD will probably incorporate 128-bit wide SSE units and more cache.
There is still time to decide what ?raincoat? to wear. AMD looks weaker now, but this will probably change. However, do not - by any means - believe that INTEL will just stand still.