Phenom II, i7, and You
by Chris Willhite on January 9th, 2009 at 9:59 am EDT - 460 views
Well AMD’s Deneb processor now known as Phenom II has been released yesterday and I have taken the liberty of reading almost every review on Earth…At least the ones in English. So here is a basic overview of all of the reviews I have read and my thoughts on the new chip.
The new chips come in 2.8 and 3.0Ghz flavors with a 45nm manufacturing process and larger L3 cache, among other improvements. At prices ranging from $235 to $275 which, if cut even a bit, will likely put the pressure on Intel to lower their prices for the new i7.
Overview of the Reviews
There are tons of reviews on the web for the new chip (too many to list here) and all of them have been fairly consistent in their findings…
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0 CommentsDeneb Soon to be Released?
by Chris Willhite on December 30th, 2008 at 11:22 am EDT - 235 views
While AMD’s Phenom processor might not have been as big a hit as they expected, this only made them more determined. The new core code named “Deneb” features a 45nm manufacturing process using immersion lithography, fourth-generation strained silicon, ultra-low-k dielectrics, and high-k/metal gates.
AMD was supposed to have Deneb available sometime in the second half of 2008 but has been delayed and is rumored to be released Jan 8th 2009 based on a leaked roadmap. It is, however, still unclear whether or not the initial release of Deneb will feature two integrated memory controllers for DDR2 and DDR3 or if the DDR3 controller is going to be added at a later date (AM3 in March?).
Also related, some mad skillz over at PC Perspective have been able to get the new Phenom over 5Ghz on dry ice and 4Ghz on air cooling. It’s also been reported that the new core has been pushed just over 6Ghz on liquid nitrogen. Who knows, maybe Deneb will be the overclocker’s choice for this year. We won’t know for sure until Deneb is actually released but AMD seems to be bouncing back at Intel.
More on the 45nm core at AMD’s site. Image courtesy of regmedia.