AMD has released benchmark data for its upcoming Barcelona quad-core server processor, and has demonstrated a quad-core Phenom desktop processor running at 3GHz. Barcelona is scheduled to ship in August. Phenom is slated for release in the fourth quarter of this year, although AMD has yet to say at which clock speeds the first chips will run. AMD came under fire last month when it announced that its Barcelona quad-core server processor would ship at 2GHz, sparking speculation that it would not be able to deliver on an earlier promise to outperform Intel"s chips.
Intel, by comparison, is shipping a 2.66GHz X5355 Xeon quad-core chip as its fastest server processor and has a 3GHz model for workstations. The chip maker has gained market share in the server market in recent months. AMD boasted at its Technology Analyst Day at its Silicon Valley headquarters that its processor outperformed a 2.33GHz Intel Xeon quad-core processor by 25 per cent in the SPECfp_rate2006 benchmark, and claimed a 30 per cent advantage on the performance-per-watt metric.