Monday, September 22nd 2008
Phenom X4, X3 45nm Lineup for H1 2009 Explained
AMD would be releasing its first desktop processors based on the 45nm silicon fabrication process, based on the newer Deneb core. The company is said to have made several tweaks to the original K10 design and equipped the core with 300% the amount of L3 cache as its 65nm Agena parts. The only thing got us wondering was what would be its nomenclature like? Well, be surprised to know that after Phenom X4 9000 series, the company plans to continue the numbering with a 5-digit model number scheme with x1000 unit deviations between models. A rather confusing naming scheme, as suggested by the chart provided, seems to have been adopted.
It is now clear, that there will be two distinct kinds of Phenom X4 45nm chips: those which continue support for DDR2 memory on the existing AM2/AM2+ sockets, and those which are exclusive to the AM3 socket and feature support for DDR3 memory, DDR3 1333MHz at that. The processors would feature dual 64-bit memory controllers, which could be ganged for a single 128-bit wide memory interface, or un-ganged to step up multi-tasking efficiency.
The first two Phenom parts out are, Phenom X4 20350, clocked at 2.80 GHz, and a higher model, Phenom X4 20550, clocked at 3.00 GHz. Both these parts are DDR2 compatible which extends the life of current AM2/AM2+ platform. Both have rated TDP of 125W. This is an improvement over the 65nm parts, which had a third of the amount of L3 cache and the 2.60 part being rated at 140W.
Next up, is a fleet of AM3 socket processors that use DDR3-1333 as the memory standard. Their nomenclature starts from the 16xxx range, extending up to 20xxx depending on the clock speed. It can be seen that the parts with a full 8 MB cache (4x 512 KB L2 + 6 MB L3) feature a 20xxx number, while those based on the Propus core which lack L3 caches, feature a total of 2 MB cache (4x 512 KB), have 16xxx series number depending on their clock speeds. Interestingly, there's a part with 3 MB cache featured. We're not sure how the math works out. Finally, 45nm Phenom X3 parts are listed, with their two kinds of cores depending on the presence of L3 caches. They use 14xxx for those with the L3 cache (Heka core), and 12xxx for those without them (Rana core). As you can see, the model numbers are now a complete deviation from the PRN system AMD used only an year ago with its Athlon 64 X2 chips. Also mentioned are their tentative release dates. AM2+ Deneb chips are just around the corner.
Source:
Expreview
It is now clear, that there will be two distinct kinds of Phenom X4 45nm chips: those which continue support for DDR2 memory on the existing AM2/AM2+ sockets, and those which are exclusive to the AM3 socket and feature support for DDR3 memory, DDR3 1333MHz at that. The processors would feature dual 64-bit memory controllers, which could be ganged for a single 128-bit wide memory interface, or un-ganged to step up multi-tasking efficiency.
Next up, is a fleet of AM3 socket processors that use DDR3-1333 as the memory standard. Their nomenclature starts from the 16xxx range, extending up to 20xxx depending on the clock speed. It can be seen that the parts with a full 8 MB cache (4x 512 KB L2 + 6 MB L3) feature a 20xxx number, while those based on the Propus core which lack L3 caches, feature a total of 2 MB cache (4x 512 KB), have 16xxx series number depending on their clock speeds. Interestingly, there's a part with 3 MB cache featured. We're not sure how the math works out. Finally, 45nm Phenom X3 parts are listed, with their two kinds of cores depending on the presence of L3 caches. They use 14xxx for those with the L3 cache (Heka core), and 12xxx for those without them (Rana core). As you can see, the model numbers are now a complete deviation from the PRN system AMD used only an year ago with its Athlon 64 X2 chips. Also mentioned are their tentative release dates. AM2+ Deneb chips are just around the corner.
61 Comments on Phenom X4, X3 45nm Lineup for H1 2009 Explained
As far as AM2+/AM3 deal, its nice of AMD to continue supporting the old socket, not everyone wants to move to DDR3 yet, i think it needs to mature more and drop in price. But i was still hoping to see official support for at least DDR3-1600, but i supppose the RAM could be overclocked to that frequency. One nice thing about is that beats Intel Nehalem DDR3-1066 boards.
8M Cache on an Core 2 Chip: "Great chips -- that much added cache makes for great performance."
8M Cache on a Phenom: "Poor chips -- added cache is obviously a poor attempt to improve performance."
:wtf:
I agree with you that K10 is looking like the Pentium 4 of the current processor world, but it's got nothing to do with their choice of cache sizes. (It's got much more to do with the heat/performance ratio.)
i.e agena core maxed at 2.6 , so deneb will start from 2.8 going through 3.0GHz and maybe in 2009/H2 they will introduce 3.2 for AM2+ and AM3 simultaneously , this or they will pull a 939 again.
and about the naming scheme , once we get used to it ; it will make much more sense , as you can divide it into 2 sections (1) 20 (2) 550 , and there is much more for future product to fill the grid : 20xxx , 30xxx , 40xxx and so on !
looks like ATi team gave them this idea as it is similar to Radeon HD 2000 , HD 3000 , HD 4000 ...
And thanks, I checked newegg.com after I posted that. Foxconns looks awesome.
or deneb and agena using the same clock speed :D
man some of us got left in the dust by AMD with our mobos. upgrade, upgrade, upgrade....
it never ends :(
mdm-adph's world: "[Phenom] performs on par with equal-clocked conroe parts":roll:
Your unconditional love for AMD has blinded you to the facts.The Phenom's won't clock to the insane levels that the P4's could, but in terms of what we had now from the Phenom line-up the 3GHz stock clock is an insane level. But pushing clock speeds isn't really important. It is really what the processor companies want to do.
at least its easy to tell if your CPU is supported on intel nowdays, amd has wattages, steppings, DDR2/3.... its just getting worse and worse.
And as the multitude of posters showed in that thread you linked, I still don't think I was wrong in stating that about the Phenom. ;)
And "unconditional love?" When I basically agreed with you that the K10 might shape up to be the netburst of the current scene -- not to mention that I've been vocal about the colossal blunders AMD has made in the past (wasting time buying ATI, for one). That's not what I'd call "unconditional love," unless you're talking about some freaky S&M shit.