Why doesn't AMD have different black edition levels?

[Anarchist420]

I heard that the PII X6 default vcore varies from 1.275-1.375v. That's ridiculous and AMD could probably make more money if they had like 3-5 black edition levels.

 

[podspi]

The vcore varies to save power when you aren't stressing the processor. I think it would be nicer if AMD could get a few faster X6's out, but I don't know if that is actually possible.

 

[gregoryvg]

The vcore varies to save power when you aren't stressing the processor. I think it would be nicer if AMD could get a few faster X6's out, but I don't know if that is actually possible.

To add to this, it would have been nice for AMD to work up some 32nm Phenom II's, which would enable higher clocking and/or lower power - and probably wouldn't have competed better with intel on price/performance/power. But I think Global Foundries isn't quite ready for 32nm yet.

Sometimes I wonder if AMD has plans to scale the Athlon/Phenom II's to 32nm? They haven't mentioned it, but it might make sense. BD is their future, but I believe it's going for the high-end of the market; wouldn't 32nm Athlon's/Phenom's make sense in the budget market? It would also allow those who own AM3 to extend the life of their system (which may be bad if AMD is counting on those to upgrade to BD).

 

[busydude]

Sometimes I wonder if AMD has plans to scale the Athlon/Phenom II's to 32nm? They haven't mentioned it, but it might make sense. BD is their future, but I believe it's going for the high-end of the market; wouldn't 32nm Athlon's/Phenom's make sense in the budget market? It would also allow those who own AM3 to extend the life of their system (which may be bad if AMD is counting on those to upgrade to BD).

Llano, but they use different socket.

 

[podspi]

To add to this, it would have been nice for AMD to work up some 32nm Phenom II's, which would enable higher clocking and/or lower power -

Llano is essentially that. Apparently they are expecting Llano variants to be the entire mainstream in the 2nd half of this year (not counting the really cheap stuff). I'm really excited to see what Stars can do on 32nm, but barring mobile (where the CPU+GPU will be awesome for low-cost gaming laptops) I'm just not sure Stars is going to be able to remain relevant for much longer...

 

[wahdangun]

thats why amd still making am3+ board compatible with am3 cpu, and move current phenom to budget cpu replacing sempron as oem and low budget solution

 

[magomago]

Llano is essentially that. Apparently they are expecting Llano variants to be the entire mainstream in the 2nd half of this year (not counting the really cheap stuff). I'm really excited to see what Stars can do on 32nm, but barring mobile (where the CPU+GPU will be awesome for low-cost gaming laptops) I'm just not sure Stars is going to be able to remain relevant for much longer...

At the prices that AMD X4/6s are selling for right now, and at the prices that Intel's offerings are, I can't see why any enthusiast would want to pay more for different tiers of BE chips unless they already had an AMD setup and simply needed to do a chip swap.

 

[gregoryvg]

Llano is essentially that. Apparently they are expecting Llano variants to be the entire mainstream in the 2nd half of this year (not counting the really cheap stuff). I'm really excited to see what Stars can do on 32nm, but barring mobile (where the CPU+GPU will be awesome for low-cost gaming laptops) I'm just not sure Stars is going to be able to remain relevant for much longer...

Oh, I didn't know that. Hmmm. Do you know if Llano will be able run on current AM3 boards?

 

[formulav8]

Llano needs a pinout change. So a new socket is needed. But the new socket I guess could possibly be usable by AM3 chips. I haven't seen much about it.

I also have a feeling that the gpu is somehow going to be the weak link on the cpu as far as thermals/clockspeed/voltage, ect.. So we proably won't be able to see exactly how far PII could do on 32nm without negative impact from the gpu.

 

[podspi]

Pretty sure the new socket is going to be completely incompatible with everything else because of the integrated GPU. I'm really hoping that AMD aggressively powergated the GPU in Llano (I don't think they did at all in Bobcat), and provides the ability to clock them separately (like the IMC to some extent now). Who knows, I've seen X6's hit 4ghz on air, if Llano could overclock to mid 4ghz (and then some with turbo) it might be a great CPU to get for a budget gaming machine. GPUs do suck up a ton of power though. Who knows, maybe AMD will powergate the entire GPU and some mobo's will have the option to switch the entire thing off. Since GF's 32nm process is still SOI, it might be possible to get some pretty sweet clocks out of it.