Agena Goes for 128 FPU While R600 Does 102.4GB/s

Everybody is expecting AMD to bring out the big guns on the 23rd and 24th of April, in Tunisia, where they will launch their latest and possibly greatest creations comprised of a new series of processors and graphics cards.

For the Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics card, it is expected to have an 800MHz core clock and 1600MHz memory frequency. It will use 512MB of GDDR3 memory, which will run on a 512-bit memory interface, twice as high as their Radeon X1950XTX model and even higher than the 384-bit memory interface used by NVIDIA on their 8800GTX series of graphics cards. The bandwidth for the card will be at a staggering 102.4GB/s, so it doesn't seem like there is much need for higher frequencies or even GDDR4 memory at the present time.

On the other hand, AMD will also be launching a new series of processors for both desktop and server systems, including Agena processors (2.4-2.6GHz, 4x512KB L2 cache, 2MB shared L3 cache, TDP 125W, HT 4000MHz, 65nm), Agena FX (2.7-2.9GHz, 4x512KB L2 cache, 2MB shared L3 cache, HT 4000MHz, 65nm), Kuma (2.0-2.9GHz 2x512KB L2 cache, 2MB shared L3, HT 4000MHz, 65nm, TDP 35W, 65W, 89W), Rana (2.1-2.3GHz, 2x512KB L2 cache, 65nm, 65W TDP) and Barcelona (2.1-2.5GHz, 95-120W TDP, 4x512KB L2 cache, 2MB shared L3 cache). For Barcelona, Agena and Agena FX, there will be a 128-bit floating point unit, alongside the first native quad-core processor architecture.

AMD is also planning ahead, with prototypes of their 45nm process node Shanghai native quad-core which will sport 6MB of shared L3 cache. And as a replacement for Barcelona, AMD is preparing the Budapesta series which will later be known as the Opteron 1000 series.