Looks as though AMD's Phenom II X4 955 CPU is finally getting a street date: April 20It's no secret that AMD's quad-core AM3 Phenom II is expected to hit the market in April, and for weeks--possibly months--speculations and rumors have been tossed around like a hot potato, dictating exactly when the flagship processor will actually appear. At this moment, the April 20 date may still be only speculation, but this report seems confident in its forecast, and hopefully, it rings true.The current reigning Phenom II X4 champion, the AM2+-based 940 released back in January, offers a nice core speed of 3 GHz, 2 MB (4x 512 KB) of L2 cache, 6 MB of L3 cache, and a TDP of 125W. However, come next month, the 955 will become the top dog of the quad-core Phenom II family, offering a faster clock speed of 3.2 GHz--a 200 MHz increase over the previous 940 processor. Additionally, the new processor will also bring to the table AM3 socket compatibility, and support for dual channel DDR2 and DDR3 memory. However, everything else--L2, L3, TDP and 45nm processing--will remain unchanged.Originally, the 3.1 GHz Phenom II X4 950 was scheduled to hit the market in Q2 2009, however AMD scrapped the idea, and decided to go forward with the 955 version instead.
What would REALLY make me smile is some new tech from AMD. Now don't get me wrong I am quite happy with my Phenom II. It is everything Phenom was supposed to be... just like at LAUNCH. It's comparable to Core 2, but intel has Core i7 and with the new benchies i've been reading about with Nehalem in the server space (where AMD is/was still very strong and competitive) it's time has just about run out. Sure AMD could continue to play in the economy space, which by no means is bad, it's just we have to be realistic and without the profits they make in the MUCH more lucrative server space, AMD will NOT have the cash to continue R&D and in this time of economic slow downs and what-me-nots, it's NOT a good time to be ONLY in the budget space. And with their FAB being spun off into the foundry, I am unsure whether they'll be able to keep up with the process shrinks (not that they are keeping up atm but still).You may think I am being negative, however you have to see the bigger picture. Does ANYONE here want to go back to paying 12k $ for a MID CLASS PC??? HELLLL MUDDA %^&*ING NO.... and without competition that's one possible problem... then there's slow downs in development cause let's face it software hasn't been driving hardware, hardware has been driving software... without competition another possibility is us getting a product refresh slower and with a more incremental increase in performance vs the jumps we've become accustomed to.... I just hope this time next year AMD is still around and strong in the game cause it'd be a pretty sad day if competition went away.That being said, if worse came to worse, i'd like to hope IBM (who is apparently eyeing SUN) would absord AMD and become Intel's new competition cause then they'd have everything inhouse just as Intel and be a true powerhouse competitor.
DAAMIT if they do, DAAMIT if they don't... I just wonder how much the PC world would have expanded with Intel as the only player...Just like what would happen if TSTT goes back to being the only proper telecom provider in T&T...it would be good times for all /sarcasm...
Fudzilla is littered with information today on upcomming AMD products.AMD plans on launching both the Athlon X2 7850 and Phenom II X4 955 on April 23, which is one week away. The Athlon X2 7850 will be a 65nm 2.8GHz dual core with 2x512KB L2 cache and a 2MB L3 cache. To top it off, it will also be a Black Edition chip which overclockers should thoroughly enjoy.AMD Athlon X2 7850 And Phenom II X4 955 A Week AwayThe Phenom II X4 955 processor will clock in at 3.2GHz and it will also be a Black Edition chip. It should be available for around US$300 at launch.AMD also has the Athlon X2 Regor based chip scheduled for launch in June this year. The 45nm part will have a 65W TDP, much lower than the current 65nm Athlon X2's. The good news is that AMD might just be able to get this chip to 3GHz and maybe a little bit more.
