DailyTech - AMD Prepares Phenom FX Lineup

Submit News

Hardware AMD Prepares Phenom FX Lineup
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - July 2, 2007 5:06 PM

E-mail

del.icio.us

23 comment(s) - last by Martimus.. on Jul 6 at 3:17 PM

Say hello to the Phenom FX-90 and FX-80 series

AMD’s latest roadmap reveals model numbers for upcoming Phenom FX processors. Under the new naming scheme, the AMD Phenom FX lineup consists of the Phenom FX-80 and FX-90 series. AMD designates the Phenom FX-80 series for single processor systems while the FX-90 takes on 4x4 dual processor systems.

AMD plans to launch two Phenom FX-90 series processors in Q1 2008. The two Phenom FX processors carry the FX-91 and FX-90 names. The AMD Phenom FX-91 will have a clock-speed between 2.4-to-2.6 GHz and will sit on a 3.6 GHz HyperTransport 3.0 bus. The lower Phenom FX-90 will have a clock-speed between 2.2-to-2.4 GHz with a slower HT3 bus. AMD is unsure of the Phenom FX-90’s HT3 bus, but roadmaps indicate HT3 speeds excess of 3.2 GHz. The two Phenom FX-90 series will drop into Socket 1207+ motherboards.

AMD plans one Phenom FX processor for Socket AM2+ platforms. The AMD Phenom FX-80 is essentially the FX-90 for single-processor systems. The Phenom FX-80 will clock in between 2.2-to-2.4 GHz and have a HT3 bus speed in excess of 3.2 GHz. All Phenom FX processors share similar feature sets, with 512KB of L2 cache per core and a shared 2MB L3 cache. The TDP of Phenom FX processors are still to be determined.

Expect AMD to pull the wraps off the Phenom FX-90 series in Q1 2008 with its upcoming FASN8 socket 1207+ platform. AMD expects to launch the Phenom FX-80 earlier, in the November-to-December timeframe.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

By kenji4life on 7/2/2007 7:06:24 PM , Rating: 2

I wonder how much benefit we'll actually see from more HT bandwidth.. In the real world.

RE: HT

By jak3676 on 7/2/2007 7:12:11 PM , Rating: 2

well for dual sockets and quad core it may start to be important, but I still think it will be a minimal difference if noticable at all.

Parent

RE: HT

By smitty3268 on 7/2/2007 8:50:22 PM , Rating: 2

For someone using all 8 cores at full speed, it may make a bit of difference. In the real world, though, where most people have a hard time even using 2 there won't be any difference at all, especially with the larger caches K10 has.

Parent

RE: HT

By SurJector on 7/3/2007 4:04:53 AM , Rating: 2

I don't know about Windows but Linux with NUMA would probably negate any HT speed increase unless (and that's a big unless) a single thread eats more memory than what's available on a single processor.

Parent

RE: HT

By Amiga500 on 7/3/2007 5:02:31 AM , Rating: 2

For desktop work, yeah, the benefit is probably marginal.

But for workstation stuff - say, CFD - where enourmous amounts of data is shunted around (from the memory to CPU and from CPU to CPU), the benefits are extemely useful.

Parent

RE: HT

By defter on 7/3/2007 8:30:47 AM , Rating: 2

In case you haven't noticed, AMD CPUs have integrated memory controller these days. Thus, in a single CPU configurations HT isn't used for CPU <-> memory traffic...

Parent

RE: HT

By DallasTexas on 7/3/2007 10:49:29 AM , Rating: 1

What's this? The HT hype is starting to deflate after so many years? Is the integrated memory controller next? LOL

Parent

RE: HT

By smitty3268 on 7/3/2007 6:59:33 PM , Rating: 3

No, it's still massively better than the old FSB which is why Intel is moving to a similar architecture. The thing is, it's already so good that just increasing the speed a little bit isn't going to improve things all that much. I think the upcoming power saving features will be more important.

Parent

If Apple can do it why can't AMD?

By InternetGeek on 7/2/07, Rating: 0

RE: If Apple can do it why can't AMD?

By cheetah2k on 7/2/2007 9:12:10 PM , Rating: 2

Comparing AMD to Apple, is like comparing a Donut to a Banana...

Parent

RE: If Apple can do it why can't AMD?

By drebo on 7/2/2007 9:18:59 PM , Rating: 2

I'd have likened it to comparing an ink blot to a used maxipad, but that's just me.

Parent

RE: If Apple can do it why can't AMD?

By GhandiInstinct on 7/3/2007 1:09:06 AM , Rating: 2

LOL

Parent

RE: If Apple can do it why can't AMD?

By livelouddiefast on 7/3/2007 3:33:43 AM , Rating: 2

how on earth would a banana stand a chance against a donut?

Parent

RE: If Apple can do it why can't AMD?

By psypher on 7/3/2007 6:51:59 AM , Rating: 2

Thus proving why America is fat...

Parent

RE: If Apple can do it why can't AMD?

By Vanilla Thunder on 7/3/2007 11:40:03 AM , Rating: 2

It's okay. We understand you can't afford a donut, and this is just your way of expressing your frustration.

Vanilla

Parent

RE: If Apple can do it why can't AMD?

By oTAL

(blog) on 7/3/2007 6:36:20 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
If people are buying iPhones only because they are cool, AMD only needs to come up with a good packaging and cool-looking CPUs to stay floating until they can actually get in the race again.

Here's an idea...
Why doesn't AMD switch to using Intel processors... it worked for Apple...

*duh*
:roll-eyes:

Parent

Lots of new for AMD today, lets hope it helps

By jak3676 on 7/2/2007 7:11:15 PM , Rating: 2

Well, my subject line pretty much says it. Everything I've read looks like pretty good news - but the devil is in the details.

It looks like AMD is going to attempt to catch up, but its not like Intel is sitting still either. AMD is currently about a half generation (one year) behind in terms of architecture and they are about the same amount behind in terms of die shrink. If they can actually jump to 45 nm in 2nd half of 08 and roll out a new architecture (Stars - after Barcelona) at the same time we may have a competative race again. I'd really like to see AMD fight for the crown again, not simply trying to compete at the lowe price points.

RE: Lots of new for AMD today, lets hope it helps

By alifbaa on 7/2/07, Rating: 0

By alifbaa on 7/2/2007 7:47:01 PM , Rating: 0

While I am certainly rooting along with you for AMD's future, I'm not sure they're only 1 year behind Intel. Reading DT's article last week on the K10 architecture which still has yet to come out, it appears even K10 won't come close to matching even initial Core 2 offerings. AMD is only now getting in the groove with 90nm, making the jump to 45 is going to be near impossible any time soon. Even if it does, 45nm won't generate profits for them unless they have a superior architecture that can make use of the smaller die size. The only thing I see AMD having an advantage in with K10 is the server market, where K10's lower TDP's are a bigger selling point and profits margins are higher than the home based market.

I think AMD are in some serious trouble. They won't go away, but some hedge fund manager might well be able to pick up a chipmaker and a graphics card company real cheap around a year or two from now. If AMD continues to hemorrhage cash at the rates they are now, they won't have much choice in the matter. They are already running out of financing options very quickly.

Parent

RE: Lots of new for AMD today, lets hope it helps

By alifbaa on 7/2/2007 7:56:19 PM , Rating: 2

I meant 65nm, not 90nm. I still think 45nm by 2h '08 is VERY optimistic. Barring a dramatic turn-around in profits, I don't believe they will have the necessary cash left by then.

Parent

RE: Lots of new for AMD today, lets hope it helps

By smitty3268 on 7/2/2007 8:48:26 PM , Rating: 3

If you're talking about the K10 benchmarks that DT showed, then forget about them. They actually showed it being slower clock for clock then the old A64 architecture, and that is not going to happen for the released product. Not saying DT did anything wrong, but obviously something wasn't working correctly (I've heard MB and memory issues may be to blame).

I think K10 will end up being all right for the short term, but I'm a little more worried about AMD in the long term. What will they have to answer Nehalem? Maybe they've got a killer K11 architecture that will come out then as well and we just haven't heard about it yet, but somehow I doubt it.

Parent

RE: Lots of new for AMD today, lets hope it helps

By Amiga500 on 7/3/2007 4:14:58 AM , Rating: 2

I'm not so worried about AMD in the [4-5 year] longer-term (from a technical point of view), thinking of Torrenza, fusion etc. With ATI on board, they can get much more leverage out of heterogeneous cores than Intel can at the moment.

However, thats only the technical viewpoint... question is, can they survive financially until then and still be in a position to fund R&D then get the product to market? If K10 is being slowed by a few path problems (as has been rumoured on the grapevine), and they can get them fixed for 2008, then they might get Barcelona up to 3 GHz quite quickly.

Parent

RE: Lots of new for AMD today, lets hope it helps

By Martimus on 7/6/2007 3:17:45 PM , Rating: 2

I think that the Fusion and Torrenza plans are exactly why Intel is trying to kill AMD off now with this price war now. AMD has the advantage in those fields at the moment, but by making them lose so much money in current production, Intel may force them to divert resources from research so that Intel can catch up in those technologies. It is actually a pretty good strategic move, and it would be something that I would do if I were Intel.

Parent

AMD CPU July Price Drop

By derrettlee on 7/4/2007 9:58:13 AM , Rating: 2

Well it is July and on the 22nd Intel is supposed to drop the prices of their processors. Does anybody have any idea when AMD plans to drop their's???