Thread: AMD Launches Phenom

THE STORY SOUNDS familiar: Intel hits a new milestone, and AMD waits a while to follow up. Two days shy of a year since Intel launched Penryn, its first 45nm chip, AMD finally countered with 45nm CPUs of its own with the Phenom II X 4920 and X4 940 Black Edition.



AMD is positioning Phe¬nom II in between Intel's Core 2 Quad and Core i7 offerings. Though limited overclocking of the 920-edi¬tion processorS is available through AMD's OverDrive software, the company is tipping its hat toward the extreme-performance crowd with its multiplier unlocked Black Edition processors. Enthusiasts have been able to exploit the unlocked multiplier to speeds above 6 GHz, surpassing the world record for Intel Core i7 processors, which stands at 5.5 GHz. The Phenom II's integrated memory controller and HyperTransport interface give it a technical edge over competing Core 2 Quad chips,

which lack those features. Intel moved to an integrated memory controller and began incorporating its own version of HyperTransport-dubbed QuickPath Interconnect-only with its Core i7 platform. The integrated memory controller and HyperTransport interface allow Phenom II processors to achieve a higher memory bandwidth than Core 2 Quad processors can, by eliminating the bottlenecks created by a fronts ide bus and an external controller. The arrangement, in theory, improves system performance.