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Retailers beat AMD to Phenom II launch

By Agam Shah , IDG News Service , 12/24/2008
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Online retailers are taking orders for Advanced Micro Devices' upcoming Phenom II processors, leaking chip details ahead of the company's processor announcement plans for early January.

Two new quad-core Phenom II processors, aimed at high-end desktops, will start shipping on Dec. 27, according to retail Web sites. AMD plans to announce the chips next month at the International Consumer Electronics Show to be held in Las Vegas between January 8 and 11.

The quad-core Phenom II chips run at speeds from 2.8GHz to 3GHz and include 8MB of cache. The chips are capable of achieving higher speeds under certain circumstances though. AMD overclocked Phenom II processors to run at up to 4GHz on air-cooled systems, and up to 5GHz on liquid-nitrogen cooling earlier this year.

AMD's Phenom II X4 940 quad-core processor, which runs at 3GHz, is being sold for US$304 by online computer parts retailer Computers4Sure. The chip is being priced as high as $373 by a Canada-based online retailer, A-Power Computer Online.

Another quad-core processor, the Phenom II X4 920, which runs at 2.8GHz, is being sold for $271 by Computers4sure. The same chip is being sold for $317 by A-Power.

For now the chips will support DDR2 memory, but faster DDR3 memory support could be added in a few months. DDR3 provides a larger bandwidth for quicker data transfers between the CPU and memory in PCs compared to DDR2 memory. To support DDR3 memory, AMD will introduce the new AM3 socket for motherboards in the next few months.

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Comments (5)
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Phenom IIBy Anonymous on December 25, 2008, 7:18 pmi see they added 2mb more l3 cache to be on par with the core i7?? i wonder anyways nice job amd

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You are scene thieves.By Anonymous on December 26, 2008, 3:03 amWe reported that on the forums and AMD reported 6Ghz not 5Ghz. Name your sources next time punks.

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cacheBy Anonymous on December 26, 2008, 3:09 pm8mb of cache are 2mb of L2 (512kb per core), and 6mb of L3

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Yea wtfBy Anonymous on December 29, 2008, 3:36 amWhere did 5Ghz come from lol? there is even reports of hitting 7Ghz.

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the real question is...By Anonymous on January 5, 2009, 4:10 pmshould i buy an i7 core or wait for the phenom ii... and how expensive are the am3 motherboards gonna be? when are they coming out? and how will this affect the...

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