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I don't care how big of a Dick Tracey you look like using the Phenom SpecialOPS mobile phone watch; its adolescent awesomeness goes unspoken.
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]
Technically, the trio of new processors from AMD are pretty much the same: they have the same core, and similar feature sets. But while the 9950 Black Edition is a 140W, 2.6GHz overclockable monster (the most power-hungry Phenom AMD has made) the 9350 (2GHz) and 9150 (1.8GHz) are selectively binned and draw just 65W TDP. This makes them the most "power friendly" quadcore processors there are. The 9950 will cost US$235 and at HotHardware.com they think it compares with Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600. While the 9350 and 9150 will cost US$195 and US$175 respectively, meaning that "eco-friendliness" won't save you many dollars in the chip price, but will cost you a chunk of clock speed. [HotHardware and UberGizmo]
Maximum PC has reviewed AMD's tri-core 2.4GHz Phenom X3 8750 CPU. It performs like you'd expect—in between quad and dual cores. Fine, but it's US$195. You can pick up AMD's top quad core, the X4 9850 for only US$235, or Intel's Q6600 (which mercilessly beat down the X4 9850 in benchmarks) for US$224 now, or hell, US$200 in a few weeks. So just get a quad core. Maximum PC also hints that a Core 2 Duo might keep pace with the tri-cores, but they're keeping that under wraps for now, bastards. [Maximum PC]
Part of AMD's multi-core Phenom blast today is the Phenom X3 8000, "the world's only triple-core x86 processor," which we heard about a few months ago. They're supposed to bargain chips for budget consumers, but they're a nicer bargain for AMD, actually, since it lets them dump bug-plagued quad-core Phenomsby disabling a core. But if performance is your top concern, you might want to steer clear of the whole Phenom batch anyway. We're still waiting for AMD's 45nm chippies, personally. [Hard OCP, Anandtech]
The Phenom X4 9850 is AMD's latest quad-core chip. It's free of the performance-sapping bug that plagued the first batch of Phenoms, and AMD hopes it'll claw back some ground from Intel. Maximum PC stacked it up against two quad-cores from Intel—the mid-rangeish Penryn Core 2 Quad Q9300, as well as an older Core 2 Q6600. Ouchies for AMD, the Intel pair blew past it.
Amid rumours of Dell dropping AMD processors, TG Daily has discovered Dell actually plans to release a new line of Optiplex PCs with AMD Tri-Core Phenom processors. They also report Dell plans to feature AMD chips in future consumer products later this year. [TG Daily]
We just got the chance to play around with AMD's newest quad core system, the Phenom RD790 and a pair of ATI HD2900XT graphics processors. There's a whole lot of cooling going on, thanks to John Woo's new game Stranglehold. The system managed the Havoc physics engine with ease, jumping into sepia-toned "tequila" time and into a zoom mode that gave a bullet's eye view of the action. The experience was mesmerizing, right up to the point where one of the bad guys in the game took a bullet in the nuts, and I actually felt his pain. Wanna see?
