AMD bumps up quad core roadmap

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Limp Gawd
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AMD plans to offer quad core processora in 2007.Dual core Turion sampling in the first quarter 2006 and manufacture in 2nd quarter

http://eetimes.com/news/semi/showAr...RKHIRWQSNDBCSKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleID=173603258


Advanced Micro Devices plans to move to quad-core processors by 2007 and will for the first time release a reference platform for notebook computers, company executives said at its annual analyst conference in San Jose, Calif., Tuesday.
Phil Hester, corporate vice president and CTO, said by 2007 AMD will introduce processors that will contain at least four cores and scale to up to 32 sockets. The processors will be coupled with chip sets that contain L3 cache; an improved memory technology, presumable Fully Buffered DIMM (FBDIMM); and Hypertransport 3.0 that will include support for fault tolerant I/O.

AMD had said previously it expected to release a quad-core part by 2008. Intel, on the other hand, recently released a roadmap that called for quad-core in 2007.

Nathan Brookwood, an analyst with Insight 64, said he believes if AMD "gets aggressive" it could release quad-core in 2006. "It depends on how quickly they can bring up the 64 nanometer processes," he said.

AMD recently opened a new fab in Germany and will use it to scale down from existing 90 nanameter process to 64 nanometers. Brockman said AMD was able to move to a 90 nanometer process in the fourth quarter 2004 and release dual-cores by the second quarter 2005.

Hester said next year AMD plans to move to DDR 2 memory in its mobile and desktop platforms. The dual-core Turion should be sampling largely in the first quarter 2006 and in production by the second quarter 2006.

By 2007 the company expects to offer quad core, improved cache performance, a new wireless technology, most likely Wi-Max.

Along with that new technology, Marty Seyer, senior vice president of business and performance computing in AMD's Microprocessor Solutions Sector, said AMD will offer a mobile platform to OEMs and systems builders to help speed time to market. That platform will include chipsets with integrated graphics from ATI and Nvidia as well as I/O. Executives said the platform will be "open" and will include a variety of manufacturer choices.

AMD executives painted an optimistic picture of for 2006, projecting growth at twice the speed of the market. "AMD only has about 10 percent of the market," said AMD Chairman, CEO and President Hector Ruiz. "We have tremendous growth potential ahead of us."

The chip maker's focus will be claiming more share of the commercial market, companies with more than 100 employees. To that end, AMD recently launched a channel program for integrators and a stable image platform. Executives characterized the programs as "significant" but declined to specify projected spending on the programs in 2006.
 
interesting, esp since quad core kinda requires 65nm :D (not the 64 stated twice ;))
i guess that means amd is running ahead of schedule, and 65nm isn't hitting any large snags. very very good
 
Waterboy said:
Hopefully multi-thread software coming down the pipe soon.
With quad cores, I think its far more likely that we'll see apps to take advantage of the untapped power.
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
interesting, esp since quad core kinda requires 65nm :D (not the 64 stated twice ;))
i guess that means amd is running ahead of schedule, and 65nm isn't hitting any large snags. very very good

What's a nanometer or two between friends??? ;)

Quad core,... *droooools* That would be briliant especially if/when multi-thread apps start becoming more mainstream.

I wonder if it is easier to scale the number of threads a program can use once you start writing for more than one. But consider this,... once programs start using multiple threads... you will need more than two cores to be able to effectively multitask :D
 
TheTMan said:
What's a nanometer or two between friends??? ;)

Quad core,... *droooools* That would be briliant especially if/when multi-thread apps start becoming more mainstream.

I wonder if it is easier to scale the number of threads a program can use once you start writing for more than one. But consider this,... once programs start using multiple threads... you will need more than two cores to be able to effectively multitask :D
its not a matter of if, its when...
 
I wish they'd hurry up with quad core. DVD shrink takes too long on dual core.
 
I liked this statement

Phil Hester, corporate vice president and CTO, said by 2007 AMD will introduce processors that will contain at least four cores and scale to up to 32 sockets.

"at least" and scale up to 32 sockets.That is some serious processor power.Will the software coding be able to keep up?Most development software currently in use is not designed to code for multiple cores effectively
 
Elysian said:
its not a matter of if, its when...
yup. two recent games are multi-threaded, and have a 4800+ beating out an FX-57, serious sam 2 and quake4. more will come soon :D
 
Have fun buying another license of windows. Windows XP Pro allows up to 8 cores/processors I believe, but Home - only 2. But what's money when you have 4 cores?
 
i didn't think it was the number of cores, but physical sockets. the pentium D EE has 4 logical cores, does it not? ;)
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
yup. two recent games are multi-threaded, and have a 4800+ beating out an FX-57, serious sam 2 and quake4. more will come soon :D
i wasn't aware of that, but that makes me happy
 
Quake 4 is built for more than one core?

*Eyes the Quake 4 box* All I need it ONE STUTTER, just give me an excuse to buy that x2 (or x4)...
 
whoa i didnt know that either i just checked quake 4 and the cpu usage is 70% as opposed to the single threaded games that use 50%
 
TheTMan said:
I wonder if it is easier to scale the number of threads a program can use once you start writing for more than one. But consider this,... once programs start using multiple threads... you will need more than two cores to be able to effectively multitask :D

very few things (that'll you'll do on the desktop) scale linearly with threading.
far more you'll see something like sqrt(N threads) * performance of 1 thread or log(N threads) * performance of 1 thread.
Many CPU intensive processes can benifit signifigantly from a second thread, or even maybe two or three extra threads.
But there is a limit to how one process can effectively use more threads to improve performance, and it's not a very high limit.

Threads are expensive to create, and don't share well.


(cf)Eclipse said:
yup. two recent games are multi-threaded, and have a 4800+ beating out an FX-57, serious sam 2 and quake4. more will come soon :D

I thought that was due to the new 80 whatever det drivers being tweaked for multithreading.



fuelvolts said:
Have fun buying another license of windows. Windows XP Pro allows up to 8 cores/processors I believe, but Home - only 2. But what's money when you have 4 cores?


Windows is liscensed per socket.
Oracle is the one with the convoluted, inchomprehensible scheme for charing (differently) based on sockets, core, logical cores ect.
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
yup. two recent games are multi-threaded, and have a 4800+ beating out an FX-57, serious sam 2 and quake4. more will come soon :D
That's the nVidia 8x.xx drivers at work. The games still only use one thread, but the drivers are multithreaded, and shift overhead to the second core.
 
RavenD said:
That's the nVidia 8x.xx drivers at work. The games still only use one thread, but the drivers are multithreaded, and shift overhead to the second core.

Nope, the games are multi-threaded too.
 
wow, thats an odd codename for a core taking into consideration their recent core codenames...

in any case, i cant wait. AMD has stated that theyve been talking (successfully) with Lenovo about getting them in Thinkpads :D

i really liked yonah, but lack of 64bit is.. eh... i keep my laptops for ~5 years...
 
windsor, orleans, taylor, tinidad.. umm, what am i missing? i know there's one or two others
anyway.. locations, no?
 
J-Mag said:
Is shrink even multithreaded?
Yes, but the big difference shows up in compression, analyzing isn't as intensive, it's still reading from the DVD drive.
 
serbiaNem said:
Nope, the games are multi-threaded too.
I dont deny the possibility, but you'd think we'd have heard something from ID Software about Quake 4 being multithreaded. I doubt it would hurt in terms of marketing to slap something about performance gains with a dual core chip on the box.
 
fuelvolts said:
Have fun buying another license of windows. Windows XP Pro allows up to 8 cores/processors I believe, but Home - only 2. But what's money when you have 4 cores?

Umm, okay. And anyone serious with their computer (or smart for that matter, really) already has the pro version of XP (if they run XP), if for nothing else, the better networking/security features. I fail to see the problem. I paid like $130 for my OEM Pro, so it's really not that bad. And besides, who the hell pays $1k for a chip, and $50 for the OS?
 
I think it was kind of meant to be a joke. Because by the time Quad-core is out, anyone who's buying them will be running vista.
 
No word on PCI Express on-die. That's a pity.

And what of this "reference platform"? An AMD-built chipset? :cool:
 
xonik said:
No word on PCI Express on-die. That's a pity.

And what of this "reference platform"? An AMD-built chipset? :cool:
i do recall hearing they were gonna start doing that more now, with the new fab. i tihnk they were gonna use the new fab for processors and one of the older ones for chipsets
 
Project_2501 said:
Umm, okay. And anyone serious with their computer (or smart for that matter, really) already has the pro version of XP (if they run XP), if for nothing else, the better networking/security features. I fail to see the problem. I paid like $130 for my OEM Pro, so it's really not that bad. And besides, who the hell pays $1k for a chip, and $50 for the OS?

who the hell pays $1 for OS?
 
lithium726 said:
i tihnk they were gonna use the new fab for processors and one of the older ones for chipsets

Hasnt intel done that in the past... cool idea...
 
Oh4Sh0 said:
I think it was kind of meant to be a joke. Because by the time Quad-core is out, anyone who's buying them will be running vista.

yea no shit.. QFT
 
lithium726 said:
wow, thats an odd codename for a core taking into consideration their recent core codenames...

in any case, i cant wait. AMD has stated that theyve been talking (successfully) with Lenovo about getting them in Thinkpads :D

i really liked yonah, but lack of 64bit is.. eh... i keep my laptops for ~5 years...


I wouldn't mind them in Thinkpads, but the thing I wonder about is whether they are as power efficient as the Pentium-M. On the desktop I would never use Intel, but their mobile processors are said to be the best. I can get 6 hours of battery life on my Thinkpad and I hope it stays that way with a Turion.
 
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