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AMD's Quad-core chips at $99; Intel to follow suit
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 17 September 2009, 15:19 IST |
6 Comments
Bangalore: Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) took another step to challenge Intel, as the company launched the world's first Quad-core microprocessor, which was previously known as Propus, at $99. The new chip is expected to enable high performance in multi-threaded applications as well as in games optimized for Windows 7/DirectX 11.
The two chips announced by AMD yesterday are Athlon II X4 620 and 630. The processors consist of 2MB level two cache (512KB per core), dual-channel DDR2/DDR3 memory controller, 95W thermal design power and operate at 2.60GHz and 2.80GHz respectively. Both processors are compatible with AM2+ and AM3 platforms. Both chips are made using 45nm silicon-on-insulator process technology. The higher-end model 630 costs $122, whereas the lower-end has price of just $99.
AMD had planned to launch Propus model in the end of August 2009, but due to unknown reason, the firm decided to postpone the announcement by three weeks. AMD has launched this processor, not to show leading-edge performance in applications but to demonstrate remarkable speed in next-generation video-games that are optimized for DirectX 11/Windows 7 as well as multi-thread rendering. Today's games only use one core for rendering, but next-generation applications programming interface will allow to use all available cores for rendering.
The news processors are likely to be coupled with AMD 785G core-logic, the only DirectX 10.1-compliant integrated graphics core-on the market, which also seems to be the highest-performing built-in graphics solution in the market today.
