AMD’s making a strong budget play today, releasing its 3.2GHz Phenom II dual core desktop processor for under $US100. It comes as part of a broader release that also includes the Phenom II X4 910e, clocked at 2.6GHz but energy friendly at 65W, as well as three new Athlon II processors that range from 65W-95W and $US74-$US119. More »
Lenovo’s new X100E ultrathin laptop just leaked out, and it’s looking pretty sweet: 11.6-inch screen, redesigned chiclet keyboard, a supposed starting price of less than $US500 and colours. Colours, you guys. On a ThinkPad. More »
It’s not surprising right after its 40th birthday, AMD’s trying to recall the better days: The Athlon II X2 makes an official sequel out of the Athlon name for its cheap 45nm chip, starting at $US87.
Years ago I used to build with AMD processors because I was looking for decent power at an affordable price. Their new Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition claims to do that for only $US69.
Spinning off their entire manufacturing arm wasn’t the end of AMD’s new “asset light” business plan — the manufacturer has cut 500 jobs from its remaining workforce around the world. The worst news is that these cuts were planned before everyone became poor last month, so it’s hard to shake the feeling that things still aren’t going too well for AMD. It’d be sad to see processors become a one horse race, but that’s what it’s starting to look like. [Reuters]
AMD’s immediate processor plans have been leaked in the form of a PowerPoint slide to Spanish site CHW.net. Dual-core “Brisbane” Athlons at 2.6GHz are due in October, alongside “Toliman” triple-core Phenoms. November sees the single-core “Lima” Athlon chip, obviously destined for low-power devices, since it runs at 1.6GHz and draws just 15W. Most interesting to processor fanatics will be the 45nm Phenoms slated for a January 8th launch. Both are quad-core “Deneb” chips, one running at 2.8GHz, one running at 3GHz and both drawing a chunky 125W of power. The “ultra-value client” devices scheduled for November are also intriguing: AMD’s answer to Intel’s Atom perhaps? [CHW.net via Reghardware]
A few years ago, AMD was the king of performance per watt with its K8 architecture, while Intel kept pushing the Pentium 4 faster and hotter, until it basically had to chunk its NetBurst architecture. So this is something of a nostalgia trip for AMD fanboys: In Tom’s Hardware’s tests, a 1GHz Athlon 64 2000+ using the years-old K8 architecture “beats the Intel Atom 230 in energy consumption and processing power” and “outperforms [it]in several benchmark tests” even though the Atom chip is running at 1.6GHz chip. How?
