Santa Clara (CA) - AMD told analysts yesterday that Phenom II X4 would be launched at CES 2009 in January. This Shanghai-based desktop product of the Deneb core, will serve as a launching platform for AMD's new industry focus, which is on value and mainstream and markedly away from enterprise. AMD's executives also stated that Intel's Nehalem-based Core i7 is out of touch with the marketplace.


The Dragon platform

The Phenom II X4 will be released along with an enthusiast platform called "Dragon." Like the server version announced yesterday, the desktop Phenom II will be a quad-core processor with 8 MB cache (6 MB shared L3, 512 KB L2 per core), support for DDR2 and DDR3 memory. Dragon will provide a range of graphics options from low-end to a "terascale graphics engine," overdrive CPU control and a Fusion optimization tool.


AMD comments on Intel Core i7

AMD's Bob Grim, senior manager of product marketing for AMD's desktop group, categorized Intel's Core i7 as being out of touch with the marketplace. He said, "Expensive motherboards, expensive memory...all expectations says that the processor will be expensive as well." Intel's Core i7 processors priced at $294 for 2.66 GHz, $562 for 2.93 GHz and $999 for 3.20 GHz. See Intel's pricing page.

AMD's Shanghai launched yesterday (slideshow) as a server chip with nine different offerings, five Opterons at 2.3 GHz to 2.7 GHz with dual-socket support, four at 2.4 GHz to 2.7 GHz with quad-socket support. Dual socket models sell from $377 to $989, with quad-socket models ranging from $1165 to $2149. See AMD's pricing page.


AMD's corporate profile

Yesterday morning, AMD's stock price was sitting at $2.57/share, very close to their 18-year low which was hit on October 28, 2008 at $2.30/share. Their market capitalization is currently $1.6 billion, being down 78.74% on the year. Most analysts do believe, however, that following the spinoff of its manufacturing division, any talks of AMD bankruptcy can "now be put behind them," according to Reuters.

I have to agree

Nov 14, 2008 07:07     

I will never pay more than $200 for a CPU. I never have and I have never suffered for it.
The Trutherizer report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +13

Wrong, Keep trying AMD

Nov 14, 2008 07:37     

I would love for AMD to come back and come out with something great. That said, WRONG. Intel is doing the right thing. The i7 is BRAND NEW which means it will be aimed first at enthusiests and people who want a high end latest and greatest desktop. There is still nothign stopped "you" from buying a Core 2 duo in the $100-200 range that still beats anything AMD has to offer (and not by a little). I'm sorry to say I strongly disagree with AMD here, coming out with even better technology costs money, just because AMD comes out with this under performing crap and has to sell it cheaper, DOESN'T mean Intel should, and if you ask me $250 for a brand new i7 2.66 isn't bad at all!

crawlgsx report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -23

I love it

Nov 14, 2008 07:51     

Haha... I love this... While this might be a relatively big issue, (oh my, look, AMD used to be uber-performance, and Intel was the average chip, now AMD is the low end chip and Intel reigns everywhere else!) there're bigger fish further down the stream... I'm waiting to see what happens when Intel decides to capitalize on their big 'Software Rendering' scheme, (Larrabee if I'm not wrong) and how AMD will respond, with the (supposed to be anyway) Fusion platform... Entire Systems on a Chip (SoC's)... I love technology... Lol... Call it a Soap opera for the geeks, I'm tuning in... Lol...

The Returned report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -8

I am glad

Nov 14, 2008 07:59     

I am glad that talks of bankurptcy is behind them. I prefer to support AMD over Intel to keep both improving their products. Without AMD, Intel would have no real reason to improve the products.
TomLeeM/BigWarpGuy report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +10

Not so Fast! We still haven't gaming benchmarks for the 2

Nov 14, 2008 09:07     

I know there have been benchmarks published, but we still have to see a head to head of these two. I will wait till I see a review with 1) performance per dollar 2) performance per watt 3) performance per clock cycle, for both the CPU and the platforms.
tomt report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +7

@the end of the day

Nov 14, 2008 13:08     

Amd is a better buy in my opinion..u still have money left back to buy a 42" lcd .. when u put up a amd system u still have moeny to do something else ..currently running x2 6400 3.2 with 4870 ...fusion tool works well ...if u own an inhell system u might be walking cause u can't afford to buy a sports car....get a amd ..more money for ya pockets
raystormer report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Intel = too expensive

Nov 14, 2008 15:33     

Why should I buy a a Core 2 duo in the $100-200 range, when I can get a AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200 for 66$ ? And a motherboard with 75$. For most of the people, that performance is more than enough.
Gonzo report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +4

Mmmmm

Nov 14, 2008 18:38     

I used to like amd until a bought on of there new processors and it did not even com with a heat sink and fan and I think there build quality has gone down. One the other hand Intel charge stupid money for the CPUs and for what a 2 to 3% increase in performance. No thanks Intel.
Bob32 report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -10

Hmmm

Nov 14, 2008 22:12     

But isn't AMD chips used to be very expensive before Intel's Core 2 Duo came out?
Yoda report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -4

no, AMD was not expensive

Nov 14, 2008 22:49     

before Athlon 64 X2 came, an Athlon XP 2800 (very good processor for those times) was 60$
Gonzo report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -4

Intel's pricing PDF page, DDR3.

Nov 15, 2008 11:52     

Intel's pricing PDF page doesn't cover the new i7 cores. I thought the i7 920 would cost $258, not $299. I looked at Crucial.COM's DDR3 prices. While some sticks are expensive, others are very reasonable. I'm not sure why everyone's making such a big deal over DDR3 prices.
Cypherdude report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -3

prices?

Nov 16, 2008 10:29     

So Core i7 is supposedly too expensive, but the Shanghai prices listed are even higher. Can't really compare current Core i7 prices to non-existent Phenom II X4 prices, can we? And Core i7 will probably be much cheaper by January anyway. So no price comparison is possible at this point. Whoever mentioned performance per dollar hit the nail on the head. _If_ Phenom II X4 has better performance per dollar, maybe I'll buy one or two.

x report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

FAO crawlgsx and x

Nov 17, 2008 07:13     

crawlgsx: You aim your new product at the professional end, not at enthusiasts - many enthusiasts have the idiotic opinion that the computer industry centres around them - whereas in reality, they comprise much less than 1% of the market. The margins from professional to desktop in completely different ballparks. I suggest you look up some of the Shanghai benchmarks, it spanks the Harpertowns in virtualisation and in databasing (MySQL) performance, and destroys them in performance per watt. No Nehalem benches for this stuff are available yet that I am aware of - feel free to point me in the direction of any though! :-) x: You cannot compare server/workstation to desktop prices. Simply no-no. 2 totally different markets. Attempting to justify this by saying "can't really compare current Core i7 prices to non-existent Phenom II X4 prices, can we?" is ludicrous.

Darth Vader report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0