14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since AMD launched its first six-core processors into the market, the Sunnyvale-based company has promised that it will soon follow with a quad-core version of the Thuban core that will also include support for the Turbo Core technology.
Now, after more that 14 months of waiting, this first such processors have just started to make their way into the retail channel.
The first country to get them is Japan, where several distributors have received shipments of Phenom X4 960T Black Edition processors that are identified with the D96ZTWFK4DGR part number.
The last two letters in the OPN (“ER”) are used to describe the core that the CPU is based on, which in this case is the E0 stepping, also known as Thuban.
This means that the processor is actually a six-core part with two of its computing cores as well as some of its cache disabled.
Moving to the actual specifications, the four cores included in the Phenom X4 960T run at a base frequency of 3.0GHz and each one of these include 512KB of Level 2 cache, which are seconded by 6MB of L3 cache shared between all the cores.
The CPU's most distinctive feature however is its support fro the Turbo Core technology, which bumps the clock frequency to 3.4GHz when two of its cores are remaining idle.
The 960T fits inside a 95W thermal envelope and the processor's AM3 packaging makes it compatible with most of the AM2+, AM3 and AM3+ motherboards released until now, although a newer BIOS version might be required in order to be properly recognized.
No information regarding the chip's price is available and we also don't know when these will start to make their appearance in other parts of the world.
The good news however is that the two extra cores that were disabled by AMD seem to be unlockable, turning this into a cheap alternative to the company's Phenom II X6 product line, provided that this process is indeed successful. (via ComputerBase)
