Advanced Micro Devices has released three new Phenom X3 triple-core processors, saying they provide “a full HD experience and visually stunning gaming and digital performance.” AMD added that its Phenom X3 line offers the “world’s only triple-core x86 processor,” with balanced platforms of “great value.”
Three Versions
Leslie Sobon, AMD director of product and brand management, went further, calling AMD the only company in the world to “deliver a balanced platform solution without compromise,” offering a “thrilling visual experience and powerful multi-threaded application performance.”
The company said Phenom X3 processors, along with AMD 780G chipsets, provide the processing and display performance historically available only in higher-end systems. The X3 will come in three versions — the 8750 running at 2.4 GHz, the 8650 at 2.3 GHz, and the 8450 at 2.1 GHz.
The new triple-cores play to AMD’s strength in the marketplace. Martin Reynolds, an analyst with industry research firm Gartner, said AMD’s challenge is that rival Intel has the performance edge. “So they can’t match Intel head-to-head” on that front, he said.
Instead, he said, AMD can compete by providing the same performance with lower power requirements and a lower price with the new triple-cores.
‘Play with the Silicon’
He also described “triple-core” as interesting, because it is one of the ways AMD can “play with the silicon” — that is, release products with various combinations of cores, speed, price and overall performance. We used to have “gigahertz races,” he said, where a chip might not be released if it wasn’t fast enough. Now, he said, you can take several slower cores and package them together into a new product.
He also noted that a triple-core product can allow a company to use quad-core chips that may have a single defective core, not uncommon in the manufacturing process.
AMD is in the process of finding product solutions…