AMD Details Early Quad-Core Plans
In a detailed briefing for analysts in New York on Friday, executives at Advanced Micro Devices painted the company as making “irreversible progress” into new architectures, specifically multicore microprocessors and 64-bit processing.
Executives confirmed that the company plans to enhance its Opteron enterprise processor line to four cores in 2007, adding focused optimizations to manage power and improve throughput.
During 2006, AMD’s integrated memory controllers will shift over to DDR-2, the next-generation memory technology currently being ramped in the marketplace. Although Intel supports the technology with its latest chipsets, AMD has taken a conservative approach to the memory transition.
In 2007, however, AMD’s desktop PC platforms will shift again, to DDR-3 memory as well as the second generation of PCI Express, which has yet to be ratified as an independent industry standard. Intel developed the first generation of the standard, but has since pulled back to allow others to push it forward, with only one vote in the PCI Special Interest Group, according to Jim Pappas, director of initiative marketing for Intel, in an interview on Tuesday.
AMD also plans to enhance its value Sempron processor with 64-bit capabilities
AMD’s mobile processors will gain their own dual-core products in 2006, with products designed for 35-watt and 62-watt environments. However, a 25-watt product has disappeared from the roadmap, possibly indicating that AMD will not be able to compete in the thin-and-light notebook market. In 2007, AMD’s mobile platforms will add WiMAX support.
“AMD plans to continue offering 25-watt parts as long as there is market demand (or customer need) for them,” said Cathy Abbinanti, a spokeswoman for AMD, in an email. More and more, power and thermal limitations are becoming the gating factor on new designs, AMD’s Chuck Moore told analysts in his own presentation. Moore, who now oversees all of AMD’s microprocessor designs, said that the flexibility of the architecture also determined how fast the product could be shipped to market.
Under development, the upcoming HyperTransport 3.0 will feature three times the throughput of today’s connections, Moore said, part of AMD’s strategy to improve the connections both inside the chip and off of it. AMD’s desktop roadmaps show a “xGHz” version of HyperTransport shipping in 2007, which AMD executives did not explain.
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AMD should get Semprons to India soon, the Socket754 versions i mean. That way we can do away with recommending Socket A Semprons for budget setups
Socket 754 Semprons are a no go especially when A64 2800+ is cheaper then those. Infact A64 2800+ is cheaper in India then US !!!
But the Semprons OC like hell
Quite true, AMD need to promote a more aggressive pricing for the Semprons and bring it lower. Else SocketA still seems to make up most of the budget segment and its a pity recommending older generation hardware to people
