14 DAY TRIAL // AMD is working hard to make its next generation of both desktop and server aimed processors unbeatable. At least, this is what they say. Personally, I tend to believe them as the new Barcelona based processors will be a "make or brake" for the entire company. In the happiest scenario, the Phenom processors will just roll over the competition (also known as Intel) both in synthetic benchmarks and in real life cases and the manufacturer company will regain some, if not all, of its market shares and will receive a much needed cash influx. The worst case scenario is that the Phenoms will go under Intel's quad core processors and AMD will be left in the cold with a line of products that simply "eat" its resources and now are sold for petty cash. Already, as a direct result of the price wars between the two competing CPU producers, the processor pricing is low and because Intel reduced the price of its own line of quad cores, AMD is in the not too happy position of being forced to price its upcoming products according to the competitor's wishes. This time, unlike the most past new hardware releases, the policy "charge all the market can bear" is out of the window.
The performance aimed AMD processors, the Phenoms, are mostly quad core CPUs based on the Barcelona architecture, but they will be available in the dual core and the still unknown FX configuration too. There are two quad core Phenoms planned, along side with three dual core ones. The quad core Phonoms will bear the call sign Agena and will be released in two variants: the GP-7100 and the GP-7000. The GP-7100 Phenom X4 will have a running clock frequency between 2.2GHz and 2.4GHz, backed up by a fast 3600MHz HyperTransport version 3.0. The smaller GP-7000 processor will be somewhat slower, being clocked between 2GHz and 2.2GHz, with a HyperTransport bus speed of 3200MHz. The two quad core processors will be part of the Spider and the Leo platforms that AMD plans to launch in the last months of the 2007 and the first part of 2008. The Spider platform will feature processors with 2MB of L3 of cache and the 64 nanometer production technology, will bring the 6MB of L3 cache and the 45 nanometer technology.
Apart from the GP-7xxx models, AMD plans to roll out a dual core Phenom with the GP-6xxx model number in the last part of 2007. GP-6550 will be clocked between 2GHz and 2.4GHz and will support a HyperTransport speed of 3600MHz and will use 65W to operate. During the first quarter of 2008, two more dual core Phenoms will arrive, both with the GP-6xxx model number. To replace the 6550, AMD plans the 6650, which will have all the same basic characteristics but will be clocked a little higher, between 2.2Ghz and 2.6GHz. The high end of the GP-6xxx line will be represented by the power hungry 6800 model that has a rating of 89W, a clock frequency ranging up to 2.8GHz and an impressive 4000Mhz bus speed.
The mainstream processor market was not overlooked by AMD as it prepares a processor from the Star line based on the Rana core. It is basically a Phenom running at lower clock speeds (2.0-to-2.2 GHz) that lacks a third cache level but still has a fast 3200Mhz HyperTransport version 3.0 bus.