AMD Brings Stops Playing Second Fiddle and Brings out the Big Guns

C.S. Magor — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:54:38 -0700

Right, before you AMD fanboys go all loco on me, hear me out. The fact is that the top of the line Intel offerings outperform the top of the line AMD offerings in every way. I would love to see AMD trump Intel and it is good to see them take a new direction with the Phenom X3.

So what is it that sets the Phenom X3 apart from Intel's Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad range? The Phenom X3 is a three core processor; however, there is a substantial difference in the architectures of AMD's model and those of Intel. The difference is that while Intel's multi-core chips are essentially four processing cores bound together, the Phenom X3 cores all run off the same piece of silicone. It has been billed as true multi-core processing and that is what it appears to be. AMD is claiming as much as a 30% performance improvement, over dual core chips operating at the same frequency.

Will the Phenom X3 live up to its expectations? AMD had better hope so, they have been hemorrhaging profits since 2006 and racked up an astonishing $3.38 Billion last year alone. If they can capture a piece of the performance market it will be a timely win. Intel has gone uncontested for far too long and CPU prices are fast becoming a major headache.

Source: Reuters