Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has unveiled on Monday the upcoming new processor family called Phenom, the world’s first true dual-core and quad-core processors, and publicly demonstrated the first all-AMD enthusiast platform, codenamed FASN8 at an event in San Francisco.
AMD Phenom processors are designed to facilitate intelligent uses of energy and system resources that are reliable, virtualization-ready and energy efficient, driving optimum performance-per-watt, AMD said.
The quad-core client processors are expected to deliver the ultimate visual experience, especially when united with AMD’s new DirectX 10 ATI Radeon HD 2000 series, which began shipping Monday.
Phenom processors will exist together with company’s current Athlon 64 and Sempron processors, which cater towards entry-level and value consumers, respectively.
“AMD has always enjoyed a great bond with the enthusiast community, and the introduction of the AMD Phenom processor family will take our relationship to new heights,” said Bob Brewer, corporate vice president and general manager of AMD’s desktop division. “We continue to focus on listening to and addressing users’ evolving needs. AMD is confident the performance enhancements enabled by true quad-core client technology in computing-intensive environments will allow them to realize new possibilities and find new inspiration.”
The Sunnyvale, California based AMD expects quad-core and dual-core AMD Phenom-based desktop systems to ship in the second half of 2007.
At a press event last week, AMD demonstrated an eight-core platform, codenamed “FASN8,” pronounced “fascinate,” to show the first AMD silicon-based next-generation eight-core platform.
The platform includes two true quad-core AMD Phenom processors, the new DirectX 10 ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT, as well as an upcoming AMD next-generation, high-performance chipset, scheduled for the second half of 2007.
With dual Phenom FX processors in the FASN8 platform, the system is able to deliver over a teraflop of computing power in a single unit.
The Phenom processors will come embedded with feature resources such as HyperTransport technology links, an integrated DDR2 memory controller and 128-bit Floating Point Units (FPU), for improved speed and performance in floating point calculations.
Advanced Micro Devices is the world's second-largest maker of personal-computer processors, behind Intel. The company was founded in 1969 by a group of former executives from Fairchild Semiconductor, including Jerry Sanders III, Ed Turney, John Carey, Sven Simonsen, Jack Gifford and three members from Gifford's team, Frank Botte, Jim Giles and Larry Stenger.
AMD is the world's second-largest supplier of x86 based processors, the largest supplier of discrete graphics products as a result of the merger with ATI Technologies in 2006, and owns a 37 percent share of Spansion, a supplier of non-volatile flash memory.
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