|
|
AMD announces triple core CPUs
Three is the magic number for AMD as it reveals plans for a three-core CPU
Three is apparently the magic number – it’s also a crowd, the trinity, a mobile phone company and the charm – but it’s not been a number particularly associated with computer hardware, with dual graphics and quad-core CPUs being the norm.
Until now that is.
AMD has confirmed the recent rumours, announcing today that it plans to produce triple-core processors. They won’t be available until the first quarter of 2008, and AMD wouldn’t be drawn on clock speeds or price. They will be Phenom models, and the company confirmed they will be made using the same design and on the same production lines as quad-core Phenoms, so will be 65nm chips.
The slides AMD provided with the press release announcement show a CPU with three cores, each with 512KB of L2 cache, along with a shared pool of 2MB L3 cache. The chip interfaces with DDR2-800 memory, and according to the roadmap AMD supplied us with, uses HyperTransport 3.0 and Socket AM2+ packaging. As AMD claims, this corresponds with what we know so far about quad-core Phenom chips.
In the conference call at which the announcement was made, AMD was keen to remind the listening journalists that it was the only company able to offer a triple core CPU, a non-too subtle dig at the fact that Intel’s current quad-core chips essentially comprise two dual-core dies sandwiched together. As Phenom is a native quad-core design, offering a triple-core version is fairly simple; you just turn off one of the cores – or alternatively, you’re able to sell chips with one core that doesn’t work. This is the method ATi and Nvidia use to create the head-spinning number of variants of their GPUs, disabling 'quads' of shader processors to create GPUs like the 8800 GTS from the top-of-the-range GTX and Ultra. Perhaps AMD is learning from its acquisition of ATi.
In addition to claiming a triple-core chip is customer centric innovation and perfect for megatasking, AMD’s spokesmen did actually make some interesting points, particularly about gaming. Many PC games are either ported from the Xbox 360, or released simultaneously on both systems, and as the Xbox 360 uses a triple-core CPU AMD is perhaps hoping its new triple-core CPUs will find favour with gamers.
AMD was also keen to stress that its quad-core Phenom CPUs, using the Agena and Agena FX core are still planned for a late 2007 release.
Reddit | Technorati
Single, Dual, Quad and now Tripple Core CPU's. It's all very nice, why it's the logical step forward for now. But what I want to know is now we have PCI-E x2, who's going to produce the first multi core GPU?
Comment by marcus at 8:33pm 20th November 2007
Come on you have to remenber that AMD before a year ago was destroying intel. AMD will turn round and be the best again you just have to remenber that just cause Intel were first to quad core doesnt make them the best. You also have to remenber that Intel arent actually using true quad cores but two dual cores stuck together. AMD is talking about True triple core along with there better memory interface (more efficient that intel). To be honest i can see AMD wiping the floor with intel in 08 as the thing with intel is that overclocking memory on a core 2 system doesnt actually improve proformance. Now think about AMD's cores have all be perfect for overclocking as overclocking an intel you dont actually see any proformance boost in overclocking anything but the CPU. When DDR3 and AMD new core unite it will blow intel out of the water.
Comment by nick101 at 1:19pm 20th September 2007
Come on you have to remenber that AMD before a year ago was destroying intel. AMD will turn round and be the best again you just have to remenber that just cause Intel were first to quad core doesnt make them the best. You also have to remenber that Intel arent actually using true quad cores but two dual cores stuck together. AMD is talking about True triple core along with there better memory interface (more efficient that intel). To be honest i can see AMD wiping the floor with intel in 08 as the thing with intel is that overclocking memory on a core 2 system doesnt actually improve proformance. Now think about AMD's cores have all be perfect for overclocking as overclocking an intel you dont actually see any proformance boost in overclocking anything but the CPU. When DDR3 and AMD new core unite it will blow intel out of the water.
Comment by nick101 at 1:19pm 20th September 2007
bluetuba thats funny, most things in the computer world tend to get bigger not smaller, while intel are selling stupid amounts of quad core's why would any one want to go backwards??
Comment by MDK_UK at 9:03am 19th September 2007
What is the point ? I mean, really, what is the point ? By the time these things get to market Intel will be flogging quad core chips for similar prices to the Core Duo chips are currently. AMD, shoots, misses and blows its own foot off. Again......
Comment by bluetuba at 11:10pm 18th September 2007
^ This guy cracks me up! Seriously, I think it's flippin' brilliant! '08 will be a very interesting year when we'll finally see a real response from AMD/Ati, if only to keep the smug folk at Intel/nVidia on their toes :)
Comment by Negative_Sun at 10:33pm 18th September 2007
if these things are just going to be quad cores with the fourth core disabled wouldent we be able to turn them into quad cores with the pencil trick?
Comment by yougotkicked at 9:52pm 18th September 2007
ok ok so I admit maybe it is a bit strange to have triple cores but 3 can be better in some situations
Comment by Watson at 8:51pm 18th September 2007
Any good developer will have realised by now that you do not assign anything to a core...what you do is tell certain things not to run at the same time as others...and allow the rest to run simultaneousley on whichever core/cpu has lowest usage...this way the machine/complier make the code much more efficient than a developer ever could.
Comment by reashlin at 8:13pm 18th September 2007
You can program applications to make automatic use of mulitple cores, the reason you don't get 2x the performance for 2x the number of cores due to the extra code and processing overhead. However as you don't need to specifically need to write code to make use of a fixed number of cores. Coding for 4 cores is no more difficult thatn for 3. A solution to multi-threading on dual core chips was to manually split up the processes in the code, this becomes diffucult to scale with increasing numbers of cores.
Comment by Thorian at 12:13pm 18th September 2007
How is the software compatibility issue going to work with these? At the moment people are struggling enough to write code for 2 and 4 core processors. Having a 3 core processor is just going to confuse the hell out of things and make them more complicated.
Comment by jonlumb at 11:44am 18th September 2007
Not really a surprise is it? AMD are cash strapped and looking to improve revenues - what better way than to find a market for some of your failed quad core chips? It makes good economic sense, but everything will depend on the price they pitch them at. All the blurb in the release is just window dressing. I have been half expecting this kind of move from AMD or Intel, although I must say I was expecting it to be Intel. Maybe their fabs are just that much more efficient and the high yields of grade A chips make it less viable.
Comment by Spreadie at 11:29am 18th September 2007
So are these expected to compete (in performance and price terms) with Intel's dual core CPU's? There's no way they'll match Intel's quad core chips.
Comment by l3v1ck at 10:30am 18th September 2007
Can't remember which podcast it was but the "jam tomorrow" effect of all these announcements was already discussed. At least it's on the socket that AMD is using right now, which implies that it's going to be the value equivalent below whatever's on AM3. Having said that the company can't really get smug about how elegant its designs are when it's Intel's Core 2 which has been leaping off the shelves, they have to start selling these things and not just stick the logo on Ferrari F1 helmets.
Comment by KHenry_07 at 9:49am 18th September 2007
Make a Comment
- Top 10 PC games chart
- Vadim goes into liquidation
- UPDATED: Rumour control: Larrabee based on 32 original Pentium cores
- Pioneer develops 400GB Blu-ray compatible disc
- Rumour control: Nvidia helping driver modders with Radeon PhysX
- Rumour control: Nvidia to add DirectX 10.1 support in 2009
- Sports games not viable on the PC, says EA
- G8 summit aims to stop piracy once and for all
- Nvidia in financial strife as it confirms ‘significant quantities’ of defective chips
- OCZ announces 128GB SSD for under £250
These are the most popular news articles over the past seven days.
- G8 summit aims to stop piracy once and for all
- Rumour control: Larrabee based on 32 original Pentium cores
- Nvidia in financial strife as it confirms ‘significant quantities’ of defective chips
- OCZ announces 128GB SSD for under £250
- Rumour control: Nvidia to add DirectX 10.1 support in 2009
- Rumour control: Nvidia helping driver modders with Radeon PhysX
- Custom PC expands team
- Sports games not viable on the PC, says EA
- Pioneer develops 400GB Blu-ray compatible disc
- Vadim goes into liquidation