Sunnyvale (CA) – AMD today answered Intel’s almost unchallenged conquest of the microprocessor segment over the past 15 months. The company officially launched the Phenom quad-core desktop CPU, the 700-series chipset and the HD3800 graphics cards.

Phenom is introduced as part of AMD’s “Spider” technology, the company’s first platform launch that takes advantage of products designed by the firm’s graphics and chipset division of the former ATI. The new CPU arrives at a critical time for AMD, perhaps just in time to cash in on the Christmas buying season and just in time to defend itself from the force of Intel’s recently introduced 45 nm processors with Penryn core.

Intel has announced 12 Penryn chips, but only one is available so far for purchase. AMD counters its rival with two Phenoms: The 2.3 GHz Phenom 9600 as well as the 2.2 GHz Phenom 9500. Besides the fact that these two CPUs are based on the Barcelona quad-core processor and are marketed as “true” quad-core processors (as opposed to Intel’s dual-die quad-core processors), AMD’s new processors do not have any immediately apparent advantages over its Intel competitors. The quad-core CPUs span a smaller performance range than what is available in 65 and 45 nm from Intel today - and settle, according to first benchmark reports, right below the Core 2 Quad Q6600. Key technical aspects include 512 KB L2 cache for each core, a shared 2 MB L3 cache, support for DDR2-1066 memory and Hypertransport 3.0 and a thermal design power of 95 watts – one of which stands out as a must-have feature to the average PC buyer.  

Pricewise, the 9600 and 9500 debut at tray-prices of $283 and $251, respectively – in direct competition of the Q6600, which is currently offered by Intel for $266.

However, of course there are some advantages, if we have a closer look at the platform level. Phenom boards will remain compatible with future processor and graphics card upgrades, thanks to a support for PCIe 2.0 and therefore have some appeal to PC buyers who enjoy upgrading their PC at least once. Then there is the potential price advantage. While not offering the performance of an Intel quad-core, the AMD chip is likely to drive prices of quad-core desktop systems below the critical $800 mark. According to AMD, mainstream 770 boards will run for less than $100, higher-performance 790X versions targeting media enthusiasts for less than $150 and quad-graphics capable 790FX for less than $250.   

An interesting sidenote is AMD’s decision to drop the X2 and X4 moniker from its product names, especially in the light of the upcoming “X3” triple-core Phenoms, which we at TG Daily believe will be much more critical to AMD’s 2008 performance than both the dual- and quad-core offerings. The former Athlon X2 chips will now be sold as the Athlon 6000 series, the Phenom quad-cores as the 9000 series, the triple-cores as 8000 series and the upcoming enthusiast quad-cores as Phenom FX-80 series. The X2, X3 and X4 designations provided AMD with a tool to highlight the number of cores in a CPU – which appears a more and more important marketing tool, according to AMD. A number sequence alone could turn out to be too plain to highlight a specific feature set next to an Intel PC.

AMD said that the Phenom 9500 and 9600 are available now.