Friday, April 20, 2007
AMD Barcelona started its 4 lane race !
Barcelona sampled to customers in Q1 (picture on the left). Production is beginning this quarter. Thus it is right time for the picture right. Customers will be shipping product with Barcelona in Q3. There will be desktop variants of Barcelona in 2 core and 4 core models in Q3. Barcelona will be demonstrated this Summer which may well mean in June at Computex but it was not specified.Computex? What a breaking news. :) You want someting really new? AMD Bulldozer is a low power dual die 8 core MCM. Perhaps even in the third quarter this year! The source of AMD optimism? Like 2,8Ghz clock at the start with rev B dual core engineering sample..
K10 at 2.5 GHz beats Intel quad at 3.0+
The new K10 based processors will really make Intel run for its money, at least till the end of the year. Just as Intel stole K8's mojo with Merom aka Core 2 Duo and quad, AMD is ready to finally fight back. It took them almost a year to prepare for the big clash.
Barcelona / Agena FX will beat Intel Core 2 Quad at 3.0 GHz+. Intel knows it and it is scared. Intel also knows that it cannot go over 3.0 GHz with 65 nanometre, at least not at 120 W TDP. Some reports already claim that QX6850 with FSB 1333 and 3 GHZ clock is already pushing the envelope as intel's 120W TDP is actually 150W+ at least on AMD's TDP scale. TDP stands for Thermal Design Power.
Intel needs to go over 3.0 GHZ to 3.2 or more to match Barcelona / Agena parts at 2.5 GHz. Intel knows that it needs to go to 3.2+ GHz and it needs the 45 nm Yorkfield core to match Agena 2.5 GHz.
Finally AMD should be able to make 2.7 if not even more with its 65 nm process. Intel has a good fighting chance with next the generation Nehalem core in the second half of 2008.
