AMD Delays High-End Phenoms, Introduces Low Power Version

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yomamafor1

yomamafor1

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http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2247404,00.asp

AMD was eager to give us a look at their "firing on all cylinders" graphics roadmap at CES—they're on the verge of shipping lower-end Radeon HD 3000 series products and the Radeon HD 3870 X2 (the dual-chip card we've mentioned before). But none of that is really news, and the details are under wraps until they get closer to the products' launches.

How about this, though: Remember how the Phenom only shipped at a disappointing 2.2- and 2.3-GHz, with the Phenom 9700 and 9900 (2.4 and 2.6 GHz) promised for the first quarter of this year? Well, in what looks to be a non-stop string of disappointing news for AMD fans, these two chips have now been pushed back to second quarter.

AMD tells us the delay isn't due to manufacturing problems, but instead because their OEM vendors have requested a low-power version. So AMD will soon release a new model, the Phenom 9100E, running at a conservative 1.8 GHz and drawing at most 65W of power.

Obviously the company tried to put a positive spin on things, but we can't help but think that if they really could produce Phenoms at the right clock speeds in the right quantities, they would have no problem satisfying the markets for both the 2.4/2.6 GHz chips as well as a new 1.8 GHz model. One bit of good news: the "B3" stepping of the Phenom CPU, which fixes the much talked-about TLB errata, is back from the fabs and looking good. Also, the triple-core and dual-core chips appear to be on track.
Click to expand...

Who wants to bet Phenom will be launched a year after Barcelona's launch?
 
Evilonigiri

Evilonigiri

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Yep, power-saving cpus. We really need them.

I mean why bother with the high-end cpus? Oh wait, we have Intel for that. And the power-savings ones.

I bet it'll be pushed to Q3...at the earliest.
 
thefumigator

thefumigator

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all I want to see is B3. How much time could a bunch of engineers take to solve that kind of bug? it couldn't take forever, they solved it, now the B3 X3s and X2s are going to be on stores in the next few months -hopefully-.

I wonder if the low power version and the B3 could be used on the rest of non-phenom-ready mobos.
Also, how good can be the low power version at OC.
Hopefully we could see a multitasking test soon. Lets say Winrar+AVG scanning+3dmark06+lame or something like that, using a B3 and 4 DDR2 1066 modules.

Maybe after all, phenom sucks on everything I mentioned. I hope it has at least an atractive price...
 
yomamafor1

yomamafor1

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Hmmm... apparently, the reason for pushing back was still due to TLB errata.

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=25851279

It was known already that the given rhythm versions with 2.4 and 2.6 GHz of Phenom were pushed back in the second quarter. We could confirm yesterday that the 9650 and 9550, version "débugguées" of first Phenom (see our article) are also pushed back in the second quarter. AMD indeed received its first chips using the stepping B3 (early silicon), the bug is still not corrected. A new "spin" is thus necessary, which can push back Phenom in May.
Click to expand...
 
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spoonboy

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Checked the (u.k) price yesterday, theres 20 quid between the phenom 2.3ghz and the q6600. www.scan.co.uk
 
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yipsl

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What OEM wants a 1.8 gigahertz 65 watt Phenom? All I want is a B3 stepping 65 watt 45nm Phenom running at 2.4 gigahertz, and I want it by March 31, 2008. That's as long as I'll wait for Phenom.

If worse comes to worse, I'll just upgrade to HD 3850's and won't even buy another dual core AMD that will only be a little bit faster than my X2 4600+. I can't see buying if they don't have what I'd expected them to have by now. Maybe the triple cores will be worth it, but I'm starting to have doubts.

I still won't buy Intel, as all I'd planned is to upgrade the processors on my ASUS 690G motherboards. Maybe I'll just wait for Swift in 2009? What a way for a company to treat a fan, and I've been an AMD fan ever since I ditched Netburst when Intel came out with their lousy Prescotts.
 
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gpippas

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Considering I'm am generally very negative about Phenom and I still am but there might be a positive to this.

Do I believe they can make faster chips?No!

But I am inclined to believe that oems want an EE version with slower clocks. Now if AMD can get oems to stick one of these in every low end pc they sell AMD can make a fortune. Especially if they can price it to compete with E2xxx and E4xxxx cpu's. The average consumer won't understand which is faster. They will see slightly slower clocked quad vs higher clocked dual. They will ask the shop assistant who will tell them the quad is better because he has no clue anyway. AMD can make lots of money to develop better high end cpu's. Or in its current case stay alive.
 
caskachan

caskachan

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What do you think they will do with all of their Errataed Proccesors that are already produced?

REDUCE CLOCK RATES AND DISABLE stuff so it doesnt fail

you got instant LOW power quad cores for oem to quickly resell and make some profit out of them so then they can launch the fixed ones , i woudl buy one of these for cheap entriline systems
 
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gpippas

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I checked the price on www.overclockers.co.uk they have Phenom 9600 only £4 cheaper than a Q6600. They also have the 9600 BE which cost an extra £12. So much for being the same price as the ordinary one.
 
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yipsl

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A slower clocked Phenom really had me down. I saw no use for it, hence my negative post above. AMD really must be aiming for the Emachines budget OEM market with this.

Perhaps it's because of the Wolfdale preview at Xbit Labs?:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/intel-wolfdale.html

Though a Phenom single core beats an X2 core by 17% or so, unless AMD can get 45nm processors out soon, based on B3 Phenom cores, they're really going to be in trouble in the second quarter of 2008.
 
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bstep1989

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the Compaq division of HP and small boutique venders like iBuyPower which make desktops aimed at college students with weaker discrete graphics cards would benefit a lot from a lower clocked EE version of a phenom.

the buyers of this market tend to not know much about what they are doing, and tend to open way too many applications at once for what there computer can handle.

many people i am around everyday who know very little about even operating windows but need to use photoshop will try to wriet a paper, run photoshop, be on the internet and stream video while operating vista on 1gig of 667MHz ram...these kinds of people will see a performance gain compared to all dual cores in their price range while stupidly multitasking like this on their weaker systems.

i am however skeptical that the B3 fix is ready or else why not make both? But i do think this is a good strategy if AMD can set the price right, i will still be waiting until the faster phenoms come out, hopefully an FX version comes out by Q2 2009 so AMD can compete at the high end once again...

long live competition!
 
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bstep1989

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AMD will not be out of the cpu business, yes their stocks are down, however recently we have seen companies investing in AMD and they have been in this situation before with the original athlon xp series...in a year or two AMD will be up to speed and things will repeat again in another 5-6 years
 
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