AMD releases Barcelona quad-core

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AMD announces Barcelona quad-core processor

 

"AMD today announced what the company calls the "most advanced x86 processor) as well as the first "native quad-core processor". Code-named Barcelona, the quad-core Opteron will be shipping in server systems this month. The core technology of the new CPU will also surface in AMD's Phenom processor for desktop systems in December.

 

The new quad-core processor carries AMD's promise of the return of the firm's competitiveness in CPU performance. Like the original Opteron CPU in 2003, AMD introduces the core of the technology in the higher-margin server segment first with plans to extend it to the desktop within a few months. In a seven city event unfolding around the globe, AMD's native quad-core Barcelona will be put into action at up to 2.0 GHz on Socket 1207. AMD will be hosting a special premiere launch event at 9:30pm EST tonight."

 

AMD's Quad-Core Barcelona: Defending New Territory

"Luckily, today is the launch of AMD's third generation Opterons. It's only at 2GHz right now, but it's packed with many clever tricks to improve the number of instructions per cycle (IPC). There's also a surprise in store: 2.5GHz samples are already in the AnandTech lab, and they will be available to everyone in the fourth quarter. So there is a chance we still are going to experience an old fashioned breakneck race; a heated battle of epic proportions between AMD and Intel for the top spot in the server market. However, this will only occur if AMD's newest quad-core is able to outperform the Intel alternatives clock for clock by a decent margin. Read on to see whether AMD has been able to pull that one off..."

 

AMD Phenom Preview: Barcelona Desktop Benchmarks

 

"Things are different on the desktop; AMD hasn't been competitive since the launch of Core 2 in the Summer of 2006 and we're very worried that even after Phenom's late-year launch, the market still won't be competitive. While that's great for consumers today, the concern is that a non-competive AMD will bring about a more complacent Intel, which we do not want. We want the hungry Intel that we've enjoyed for the past year, we want ridiculous performance and aggressive pricing, and we won't get that without an AMD that can fight.

 

But AMD won't tell us anything about how Phenom will perform, other than that it will be competitive with Conroe/Kentsfield. So the goal here today is to get an idea of exactly how much faster Barcelona (the same core that'll be in Phenom X4) will be compared to the Athlon 64 X2."

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Sun outs monster Barcelona box

 

"In addition, this 32 core monster has four hot-swap PSUs and six PCIe 8x slots. You know it was made by one of us because it has NICs labled 0-3, not 1-4. Nice."

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These rumors won't go away....

 

AMD Tri-Core Phenom

 

"AMD'S LATEST ROADMAP shows that the introduction of the Phenom X3 series of processors is a rather logical step. Three cores provide an ideal way to keep quad-core wafer production at a maximum efficiency, since manufacturing a four-core chip and delivering just a dual-core product (if only one of the cores is faulty) would significantly dent AMD's current and future margins."

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Doesn't get more official than that....

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Tim Sweeney (Epic) talks Triple-Core

 

"PCGH: Is there enough space "between" Dual and Quadcore CPUs to optimize for? I.E. is it feasible to optimize for two cores, three cores etc. or rather optimize for "many cores", regardless of the exact number?

 

Tim: Yes. Unreal Engine 3 runs two primary threads and a scalable pool of helper threads. The primary threads handle gameplay and rendering, and provide a constant heavy computing load. The helper threads are scalable to many cores, and handle physics updates, streaming, and decompression now, with threading support being added to other systems over time. In this architecture, a 3-core PC would provide measurably more physics performance than a dual-core PC."