IanCutress: Every year you have to start earlier and earlier.đ °ď¸ Journalists learning about technology (su⌠IanCutress: When people start, they are one of two types.
IanCutress: Mubadala the owners were fed up of seeing no return on investment after 5+ years.âŚ.IanCutress: Can luminescent reindeer noses be an alternative replacement for cochineal?.Oh and the T stands for AMDâs Turbo Core technology. Instead of a quad-core Core i7 860, AMD will sell you a six-core 1090T. Both based on a 45nm process, AMD simply offers you more cores for roughly the same price. The new Phenom II X6 processors are aimed squarely at Intelâs 45nm Lynnfield CPUs. As a result, motherboard manufacturers are already talking about Phenom II X4 to X6 unlocking tools. We'll soon see more flavors of the Phenom II X6 as well as a quad-core derivative with 2 of these cores disabled. Like I said earlier, itâs not about absolute performance, but performance at a given price point. You're getting nearly 1 billion transistors for $200 - $300. While the 980X retails for $999, AMDâs most expensive 6-core processor will only set you back $285 and you can use them in all existing AM2+ and AM3 motherboards with a BIOS update. The limitations are nitpicks in the grand scheme of things. In order to maintain backwards compatibility, the Phenom II X6 is still limited to the same dual channel memory controller as its quad-core predecessor. Intelâs Core i7 980X is paired with a triple channel DDR3 memory controller, more than enough for four cores under normal use and enough for a six core beast. Thereâs also the issue of memory bandwidth. The 6 cores have to share the same 6MB ĺ cache as the quad-core version. When Intel added two cores to Nehalem it also increased the ĺ cache of the chip by 50%. The fastest Phenom II X6 runs at 3.2GHz, just 200MHz shy of the fastest X4. The part sells for $295, not $285, in 1000 unit quantities. Update: AMD tells us that it gave us the wrong pricing on the 1090T. Itâs still a 45nm chip but thanks to architecture and process tweaks, the new Phenom II X6 still fits in the same power envelope as last yearâs Phenom II X4 processors: 125W. Today we get that alternative, this is the Phenom II X6 based on AMDâs new Thuban core:
When Intel announced its first 6-core desktop processor, the Core i7 980X at $999, we knew a cheaper AMD alternative was coming. While Intel has better performance per clock, you canât argue with more cores/threads for applications that can use them.
The Athlon II X3 and X4 deliver better performance in highly threaded applications than the Intel alternatives. In some situations, this works to AMDâs benefit. Today AMD will sell you three or four cores for the price of two from Intel. As AMDâs products got more competitive, the more-for-less approach didnât change.
Intel had the Core 2 Duo, AMD responded with the triple core Phenom X3. While AMD hasnât held the absolute performance crown for several years now, that doesnât mean the companyâs products havenât been successful.Äuring the days of the original Phenom, AMD started the trend of offering more cores than Intel at a given price point. A very smart man once told me that absolute performance doesnât matter, itâs performance at a given price point that makes a product successful.