The PC Report

Joining the AMD Athlon II range today are six new CPUs, all of which should provide some good bang for buck thanks to the under US$150 price point. The upper end of the new line-up consists of a quad-core Athlon II X4 640 which comes loaded with a 3.0 GHz clock speed, 2 MB of L2 cache and a 95W TDP. The mid-range Athlon II X3 445 comes with a 3.1 GHz clock speed, 1.5 MB of L2 cache and a 95W TDP. Finally, the 3.2 GHz Athlon II X2 260 with 2MB of L2 cache and a TDP of 65W fills out the dual-core sector. Prices for these processors are US$122, US$87 and US$76 respectively.

Also coming to us are three lower power processors – the Athlon II X4 610e, X3 415e and X2 245e with are clocked at 2.4 GHz, 2.5GHz and 2.9 GHz respectively with prices of $145 for the quad, $102 for the triple and $77 for the dual. All three CPUs have a 45W TDP which is perfect for a home server or media PC. All the processors released today should be available in stores pretty soon, if not right now.

A new motherboard from Asus will soon be hitting the shelves that allows mix-and-match graphics cards from different vendors thanks to the Lucid Hydra chipset present on the board – this means you could chuck in an ATI card along with a Nvidia card! The Asus CrossHair IV Extreme will be the next out of Asus’ line of high-end motherboards packed with great features like the mix-match GPU support  and also Bluetooth RoG Connect, as seen on the Maximus II Extreme, will also be present.

The CrossHair IV Extreme packs an AMD AM3 socket along with the 890FX chipset to support the latest in AMD processors including the new Phenom II X6s. What we can deduce from the pictures provided is that there will be dual-channel DDR3 support, upwards of nine SATA ports which at least two of should be SATA 6 Gbps, five PCIe slots and one standard PCI slot and Core Unlocker and OC Turbo Key buttons. We hope USB 3.0 is present on the board.

The CrossHair IV will certainly sport a nice expensive price tag when it becomes available – which is currently unclear.

Today AMD has released their first six-core processors into the desktop world. The AMD Phenom II X6 “Thuban” processors released today come in two flavours – the 1090T which comes with a core clock of 3.2 GHz with a maximum Turbo Core clock of 3.6 GHz and the 1055T which packs 2.8 GHz across all six cores along with a 3.3 GHz Turbo clock. Each processor comes with 3 MB of L2 cache and 6 MB of L3 cache, happily fits into an AM2+ or AM3 socket motherboard.

Prices start at US$285 and US$199 for the processors respectively, and therefore are priced to compete with Intel’s “Lynnfield” processors – namely the Phenom II X6 1090T is matched up with the Intel Core i7-860 in terms of price and the Phenom II X6 1055T is matched with the Core i7-750. Of course, the Intel processors aforementioned are only quad-core processors but they still fair pretty well against the Phenom II X6s.

Read the rest of this entry »

MSI, Gigabyte and Asus have announced that they will be releasing new motherboards that are set to unlock the true potential of some Phenom II processors. These motherboards will support a hardware method of unlocking and using disabled cores in some new AMD Phenom II processors – an option which will be available in the BIOS of the special motherboards. Each manufacturer is set to have their own name for this technology, eg. Asus’s name for the tech is “Core Unlocker”.

As you may be aware, some processors do not meet design specifications are dumbed-down and have cores disabled so that they can still be sold, usually for a cheaper price and under a different model name. The M4A89GTD series from Asus, the 89FXA-UD7 motherboard from Gigabyte and the 890GXM-G65 for MSI will all support unlocking of these disabled cores, with more motherboards presumably coming in the future.

Note: Pictured motherboard is not the new core unlocking motherboard

Rumour has it that AMD will soon be releasing some more triple-core processors into their Athlon II X3 range. The Athlon II X3 450 is slated for a Q3 release and will come loaded with a 3.2 GHz triple-core “Rana” processor made using AMD’s 45nm process. The “Rana” core comes with 1.5 MB of L2 cache and no L3 cache, along with support for DDR3 memory. The TDP for this chip is expected to be 95W.

The Athlon II X3 445 is the second chip coming sometime in Q3 and is also based on the “Rana” core but with a clockspeed of 3.1 GHz – a small bump over the Athlon II X3 440‘s clockspeed of 3.0 GHz. A 45W triple-core is also coming soon, known as the Athlon II X3 415e with a 2.5 GHz clock speed. No pricing has been announced for these chips but we estimate the prices will be somewhere between US$130 and US$90.

Intel has already kicked off the consumer six-core race with the Core i7-980X, and as we’re waiting for AMD’s six-core processor we are getting specs leaked by Gigabyte. While the specs sheet has since been pulled, Hexus caught a glimpse of what’s coming in the Thuban CPUs – the Phenom II X6 1055T and Phenom II X6 1035T.

In the X6 1055T we’ll be seeing a clock speed of 2.8 GHz, 512 kB of L2 cache per core and 6 MB of L3 cache. The X6 1035T will be clocked at a lower 2.6 GHz but with the same amount of cache as the bigger brother. TDPs have not been leaked, but it is expected that the processors will be rated as either 95W or 125W.  Both processors are built from AMD’s 45nm process and will fit into the AM3 and AM2+ socket, and are set to be released in April.

A new rumour surrounding AMD’s latest six-core processors has leaked out of AMD HQ. Their “Thuban” six-core CPUs will apparently be showcased at CeBIT 2010 in Germany, followed by a release to the public on April 26. This release will coincide with AMD’s 880G chipset debut.

The new hexa-core processors will go under the Phenom II X6 name and start with the 1075T, 1055T and 1035T models. All CPUs will be based off AMD’s 45nm process and compatible with the AM2+/AM3 sockets. Thuban processors will also have a speed boost-type technology that will function similar to Intel’s Turbo Boost technology featured in their Core i5 and i7 CPUs.

Today AMD has taken one big step in announcing that samples of their Fusion APU (Advanced Processing Unit), codenamed “Llano”, should be available in the first half of this year with volume production in 2011. The 32nm chip will pack both a quad-core processor as well as  a DirectX 11 supporting graphics processor on the one die. The chip is said to run at 3GHz+ and will support DDR3.

This “Llano” chip will go head on with Intel’s single die CPU+GPU solution, Sandy Bridge, which is also set for a 2011 production release. However, AMD will have the heads up on the Intel chip with their DX11-supporting GPU (which is based on the Evergreen DX11 lineup); Intel’s chip only supports DX10. AMD is also boasting that the chip will be less power consuming thanks to  power gating – a technique used on Intel’s Nehalem chips to help lower a core’s power and power up another core (hence Turbo Boost).

Also, for those of you wondering, Intel’s Arrandale and Clarkdale chips are not the same as these single-die CPU+GPU solutions – the Arrandale/Clarkdale chips have two dies (one for the CPU and one for the GPU). Anyway, no doubt we’ll see more of these chips later this year.

New reports are coming through about when both AMD and Intel will release their new six-core processors into their ranges. According to Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers the Intel six-core “Gulftown” CPUs, starting with the Core i7-980X, will be coming out at the end of March this year and priced at greater than US$1,000.

AMD will be releasing their six-core “Thuban” processors sometime in May of 2010. The CPUs will go under the Phenom II X6 1000T series, and will start with the Phenom II X6 1075T, 1055T and 1035T and will all be based off the 45nm process. A quad-core Phenom II X4 960T will also be released along with the six-core CPUs, and the new 890FX and 890GX chipsets will come a month before.

AMD has released 5 new processors into the Athlon II and Phenom II line-up to fill out the lower-end of the scale, and also to compete with the recently released Intel Clarkdale processors. In this selection, we’re seeing two Phenom IIs and three Athlon IIs with prices ranging from US$74 up to US$169.

To get into the itty-bitty details, there is a Phenom II X4 910e running at 2.6GHz with a low power consumption of 65W but the highest price of US$169. Also new to the Phenom II range is the X2 555 BE – a dual-core processor clocking 3.2GHz and costing just US$99. In the Athlon II range there is the X4 635, X3 440 and X2 255 – with clock speeds of 2.9GHz, 3.0GHz and 3.1GHz respectively and prices of US$119, US$84 and US$74 respectively.

Read the rest of this entry »