Wednesday, August 27th 2008
AMD Phenom X2 Information Trickles
Time draws closer for the Athlon 64 X2 to retire. It has seen its good and bad days, leading Intel versus the Pentium D and trailing it versus the Core 2 Duo. German site Hardware Infos shed light on the primary lineup of the dual-core edition based on the K10 architecture, the Phenom X2. There are no core architectural changes for the Phenom X2, codenamed "Kuma" over the K8, except that like the Phenom X3 and X4, these chips feature 2 MB of L3 cache apart from 512 KB caches per core and the revised HyperTransport interface. The listed models come at a rated TDP of 45W. The first three Kuma chips listed have clock-speeds ranging from 1.90 GHz to 2.30 GHz and have been given model numbers that look confusing to the older PRN system AMD employed, with the top Athlon 64 X2 rated at 6400+. The later releases of the older X2 using the Brisbane core broke away from the older PRN and we saw models such as 4450e, 4850e or 4850b (note the absence of the "+").
The naming of these chips asserts that. For example, the 1.90 GHz Kuma part is named Phenom X2 GE-6400. Going by the performance evaluations of other parts based on the K10 architecture, at 1.90 GHz + the 2 MB L3 cache, this part might not be on par with the Windsor core Athlon 64 X2 6400+. Contradicting earlier reports that AMD would work out Kuma parts on the 45 nm fabrication process, all three Kuma parts reported are based on the 65 nm fab process.
The Phenom X2 GE-6400 has a clock speed of 1.90 GHz, the GE-6500 has a clock speed of 2.10 GHz and the GE-6600 even higher at 2.30 GHz. All parts feature 512 KB of L2 cache per core, a 2 MB L3 cache, HyperTransport 3.0 link speed of 1600 MHz (3200 MT/s) and rated TDP of 45W. Pricing and availability remain to be seen.
The naming of these chips asserts that. For example, the 1.90 GHz Kuma part is named Phenom X2 GE-6400. Going by the performance evaluations of other parts based on the K10 architecture, at 1.90 GHz + the 2 MB L3 cache, this part might not be on par with the Windsor core Athlon 64 X2 6400+. Contradicting earlier reports that AMD would work out Kuma parts on the 45 nm fabrication process, all three Kuma parts reported are based on the 65 nm fab process.
The Phenom X2 GE-6400 has a clock speed of 1.90 GHz, the GE-6500 has a clock speed of 2.10 GHz and the GE-6600 even higher at 2.30 GHz. All parts feature 512 KB of L2 cache per core, a 2 MB L3 cache, HyperTransport 3.0 link speed of 1600 MHz (3200 MT/s) and rated TDP of 45W. Pricing and availability remain to be seen.