Delivering a four-core foreshadowing of innovations to come for PC enthusiasts worldwide, AMD today unveiled the upcoming AMD Phenom processor family name and publicly demonstrated the first all-AMD enthusiast platform, codenamed "FASN8." The industry's only true quad-core client processors will deliver the ultimate visual experience, especially when paired with AMD's new DirectX® 10 ATI Radeon HD 2000 series, which began shipping today. AMD plans to ship true quad- and dual-core AMD Phenom-based desktop processors in the second half of 2007.
In a demonstration last week in San Francisco, AMD previewed an eight-core processor solution, "FASN8." FASN8, pronounced "fascinate," stands for the first AMD silicon 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 AMD's next-generation, high-performance chipset, due in the second half of 2007. This solution illustrates AMD's leadership in delivering a single solution with increased levels of integration, translating into a boost in real-world performance enhancements.
"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 be focused 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."
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Only AMD Delivers True Quad-Core
AMD Phenom processors will be uniquely designed to facilitate intelligent uses of energy and system resources that are reliable, virtualization-ready and energy efficient, driving optimum performance-per-watt. All AMD Phenom processors will feature resources like an integrated DDR2 memory controller, HyperTransport technology links, and 128-bit Floating Point Units, resulting in improved speed and performance in floating point calculations.
With a true quad-core design offered by the upcoming AMD Phenom processors, cores communicate on the die rather than through a front side bus external to the processor – the bottleneck inherent to packaging two dual-core CPUs to form a quad-core. Additionally, AMD's on-chip integrated memory controller ensures that all four cores have optimum access to the integrated memory controller and integrated HyperTransport links, so that performance scales well with the number of cores. This design is also highlighted by a unique shared L3 cache for quicker data access and Socket AM2 and Socket AM2+ infrastructure compatibility to allow for a seamless upgrade path.
"AMD's quad-core processor rollout will put more computing horsepower at PC users' fingertips," observed Nathan Brookwood, research fellow at Insight 64. "Quad-core innovations come at a time when many users are finding that the combination of Microsoft Vista, multi-threaded applications and DirectX 10, no longer delivers the crisp performance they experienced on last year's fastest systems running last year's software. The AMD Phenom processors' ability to deliver significantly more performance within the same power and thermal envelopes as its dual-core antecedents makes this quad-core processor a fitting follow-on to earlier AMD dual-core processor offerings."
AMD Phenom Processor Family
Enthusiasts, digital content creators and mainstream users alike are seeking more immersive, visual computing experiences – developing and navigating rich 3D worlds, finding new ways to create and share digital media and memories, and pushing the limits of productivity with intense multitasking. AMD Phenom processors will have the exceptional performance and capabilities customers require, employing state of the art platforms and next-generation processor architecture.
"Quad-core technology like the AMD Phenom processor family will enable Dell customers to enjoy their personal computers in entirely new ways," said Neil Hand, vice president marketing, Dell's Consumer Product Group. "With a quad-core CPU, the desktop PC can now truly act simultaneously as a server for home digital media devices, while keeping customers secure and productive in their mainstream use."
For enthusiasts who demand cutting-edge performance on their system, AMD Phenom FX processors will deliver extreme megatasking capabilities. The true quad-core and octa-core platforms with a Dual Socket Direct Connect (DSDC) Architecture configuration can provide enthusiast-class features and performance, allowing our customers to deliver professional-grade results. Moreover, AMD's quad-core processors and unique eight core solutions, with four processing cores on one die, coupled with the latest platform technologies, including the new ATI Radeon HD 2000 series, can deliver the ultimate enthusiast PC platform. AMD Phenom X2 and X4 processors will offer true quad- and dual-core advanced technologies for seamless multitasking and optimum energy efficiency.
"Falcon Northwest understands what enthusiasts want and continually strives to deliver the ultimate gaming experience," said Kelt Reeves, president, Falcon Northwest. "The advent of AMD's quad-core processor technology represents an industry-defining change for multi-threaded gaming that spells immediate benefits in terms of absolute performance. By combining Falcon Northwest's gaming prowess together with AMD's commitment to performance and future platform offerings, we are excited to help drive the future of multi-core computing."
With true quad-core processors, AMD also expects to see performance enhancements in multitasking, computing-intensive environments, multi-threaded applications and gaming.
"Like AMD, we too envision quad-core technology as an enabler of a more immersive experience," said Phil Taylor, senior program manager of Aces Studio at Microsoft Game Studios. "Multi-core technology is already opening up a new world of significant possibilities with the Service Pack1 release for Microsoft Flight Simulator X. SP1 contains multi-threaded code for terrain loading and in-flight generation of terrain textures; as well as for the batching of Autogen vegetation and buildings. This code is written to allow SP1 to use all available cores. We are excited about AMD's upcoming quad-core technology, which we believe will further enable our mutual customers to dial up the visual details when using SP1 and see more of the highly detailed world contained in FSX."
"Like AMD, Lionhead is excited with the possibilities that multi-core will bring to gaming and believe that AMD's quad-core technology is another step in delivering the power we are looking for," said Tim Rance, CTO of Lionhead. "We are eager to push the detail in our simulations ever deeper, make our physics more fine grained, our AI more emotional and our lighting more dynamic. All of this will enable us to deliver the mass-market experiences that our customers are looking for."
"We are really excited about the upcoming introduction of AMD's native quad-core solution," said Markus Mäki, Development Director, Remedy Entertainment . "The technology behind Alan Wake is built to take advantage of multiple CPU cores and gamers with quad-core systems will have an even better experience. AMD Phenom processors will be a welcome addition for all gamers."
"AMD's new quad-core technology will provide a great performance boost for today's high-end PC games," said Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games Inc. "Our Unreal Engine 3 game technology can take advantage of four and even eight processor cores, improving performance by accelerating physics and AI calculations, and increasing the realism of the game environments our artists can build. Upcoming games like Unreal Tournament 3 will truly fly on these new CPUs."
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