Exclusive: Dell Set To Introduce AMD Tri-Core Phenom

[daveybrat]

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Round Rock (TX) - Still think that Dell is dropping AMD? Think again: TG Daily got to the bottom of the Dell/AMD rumors and discovered that Dell is far from dropping its AMD line-up. In fact, there will be a surprise in new products scheduled for a global launch next week, on February 19.

Also, we have been saying for a while that the Phenom triple-core may turn out as AMD's ace against Intel's dual-cores: In a world that has changed from focusing on Megahertz to the number of cores, the perception that three cores are better than two may work in AMD's favor - at least if the triple-cores are priced against the dual-cores and AMD isn't taking a hit with the production cost.

Interesting article. I'm still curious about these chips and what they'll cost and how they perform.

 

[harpoon84]

I think they'll be quite cheap. Multithreaded performance will be reasonable (similar to C2Ds) but lower single threaded performance should mean it's priced competitively against C2Ds.

 

[Idontcare]

Its really a bummer that AMD had to digress from their Phenom plans to this tri-core "clearance bin" affair.

Surely they could have gotten the same results with much less expense had they just bolted another core onto the existing K8 X2's and rebadged them as X3's. Might have even been able to deliver such a frankenstein to the market at a fair bit higher clockspeed for same TDP as well.

Selling the next-gen stuff like this really devalues the market perception of the value of the leading edge product line. Would rather see K8 tech upgraded to hit the low ASP bins at DELL rather than seeing the K10 tech downgraded to be sold off in the same "budget markets".

This is not a "positive buzz" position you want to find yourself in, that is unless you are so screwed otherwise that you take this kind of thing as a move forward.

And who knows, maybe AMD is so far behind the curve in terms of IPC and clockspeed when 45nm timelines are factored in that they are just coming to terms with the realities of what 2009 are going to bring them and their shareholders.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Tricore is a nice way for amd to say celeron. Looks like amd has taken a page right out of intels playbook.

 

[soccerballtux]

What the heck so many obviousman posts today. I'm looking at you harpoon and puff. In other news the sky is blue, and my post count was increased by one.

 

[Puffnstuff]

No now it's been increased by two.

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Puffnstuff
Tricore is a nice way for amd to say celeron. Looks like amd has taken a page right out of intels playbook.

If DELL really does have the exclusive on this then that would suggest this was something DELL insisted on or at least approached AMD to consider. But that is obviously just pure baseless speculation on my part.

Intel's celerons tend to be last years tick to this years tock, I thought.

For example, weren't Celerons stuck with Cedar Mill cores (the last vestige of Netburst) while Intel's mainstream went to Core 2 Duo? Even the varying cache-size schemes weren't called celerons, IRC.

Meaning, my point would be that if AMD were to take a page out of Intel's market segregation model then AMD would be spinning the K8 processor line as Sempron's while keeping Quad Phenom as their premium product line.

I don't know anymore, I really don't like to discuss AMD these days as it just saddens me to see no light at the end of tunnel for as far down the pipe to 32nm as I can see.

It would please me to know end to find out how little I know and watch AMD thrump Intel again in 9 months. But something tells me we have all just witnessed the end of era back in 2006.