The ability to unlock the disabled core on Phenom II X3 processor draws parallels with the days when one could soft-mod a NV40-based GeForce 6800 XT to higher models. An article by Korean website Playwares made waves on the internet yesterday, which suggested a very easy method to unlock the disabled core on Phenom II X3. Several users have been able to verify and confirm the method works. While Playwares used a Biostar-made motherboard, people with ACC-supportive motherboards from several makes have been able to get the mod to work. Motherboard vendors performed their own testing to confirm this method, and have had some success so far.

The success of this mod however, depends on a few factors:

• The disabled core AMD notes to be "unstable", should be fit-enough to be at least enabled and working
• The motherboard should support the Advanced Clock Calibration feature, which currently only motherboards with AMD's SB750 southbridge chip support
• The Phenom II X3 processor should belong to the 0904 manufacturing batch, these should be some of the initial batches of the processor, and may still be found with retailers

It is a well-known fact that AMD has been carving out triple-core and dual-core Phenom/Phenom II series processors out of complete Agena/Deneb dice with one or two cores disabled. In a fresh revelation, a Korean enthusiast claims to have discovered that it is rather easy to unlock the disabled core on Phenom II X3 processors, provided the motherboard supports the Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) feature that is meant to enhance overclocking using AMD's Overdrive software. The enthusiast claims the soft-mod to have worked in his/her case, where a Phenom II X3 710 was paired with a Biostar TA790GX 128M motherboard. The CPU was overclocked to 3.12 GHz, with a vCore setting of 1.37 V.

The method employed: Set the appropriate BIOS setting for the Advanced Clock Calibration feature to "Auto", save settings and restart. The system will be able to deal with the disabled core, and off load some work to it. The processor with the "additional" core was tested to be Prime95 stable and was able to boost 3DMark06 CPU score by as much as 1,000 points. Let the screenshots below speak for themselves:
The method:

It is clear now, that AMD's next performance GPU, the RV790 will be built on the 55 nm manufacturing process. To build on this information, sources tell German website Hardware-Infos that one of the factors that will help the new GPU perform better and run at higher clock-speeds than its predecessor, the RV770 does, is the newer improved 55 nm manufacturing process it will be built on. Going by the foundry-partner codename "55GT", the RV790 may get a little help from its superior silicon fabrication, which invariably makes it more expensive to manufacture.

One of the reasons behind why AMD is starting its 40 nm GPU lineup with a mainstream GPU such as RV740, is that the 40 nm process needs further development by foundry companies. It hasn't developed to the level that safely permits manufacturing high-end GPUs with stellar transistor-counts. For the same reason, NVIDIA's 40 nm conquest will be flagged off by the entry-level GT218 GPU. High-density circuits built on the current 40 nm process are known to be very prone to electrical leakage.

In yet another overclocking feat using AMD's Phenom II series processors, Team Finland set a new 3DMark06 world-record score of 35,698 3DMarks. The team consisted of renowned overclockers Petri "SF3D" Korhonen Sampsa Kurri and Sami "macci" Mäkinen. The team used AMD's DDR3-supportive AM3 platform and used high-performance DDR3 memory to demonstrate its overclocking capabilities. The bench consisted of:

• AMD Phenom II X4 6187MHz (4500MHz NB) under Dragon F1EE pot, liquid nitrogen cooling
• ASUS M4A79T Deluxe (790FX chipset)
• Corsair XMS3-2133 2x1GB DDR3-1800 CL7-7-7-1T
• 2x Radeon HD 4870 X2 830/950MHz with stock cooling
• Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W

As NordicHardware notes, for the first time in ages, an AMD-platform topped 3DMark06 Hall of Fame, crossing the previous record holder by 150 3DMarks. Validations of the score can be found here. A video of the feat has been posted on YouTube, and can be viewed here.

After a successful shareholder approval AMD received for spinning-off its manufacturing division to form The Foundry Company (TFC) with a majority stake holding by Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), top-brass of the Fab subsidiary in Dresden, German saw a power-shift. Long-standing general manager Hans Deppe left the company, to be succeeded by Jim Doran.

Doran's experience with the subsidiary covering Fab 36 (65 nm SOI capable) and Fab 38 (45 nm SOI capable) includes being its general manager in the past, which made with a contender to the post. The Dresden facilities will officially come under TFC from March 2. While as part of AMD the facilities were dedicated to manufacturing AMD microprocessor parts, under TFC, not only will they serve as foundry-partner for AMD, but also accept designs from other companies seeking manufacture on the facilities TFC offers.

AMD has just released ATI Catalyst version 9.2, so now you have a brand new driver for tonight and a nice tweaking utility to test. Catalyst 9.2 brings performance benefits in several games:

• Crysis DX10 gains up to 20%
• Crysis Warhead DX10 gains up to 20%
• World in Conflict gains up to 5%

Now the new driver also enables Anisotropic Filtering for DirectX 10 applications in Windows Vista and fixes some minor issues that occured in previous versions. For the full list of fixes, please read the Catalyst 9.2 release notes.


DOWNLOAD: ATI Catalyst version 9.2 for Windows XP and Windows Vista (32/64-bit versions)

A lot has been said about AMD's rather mysterious new performance GPU, the RV790. Clues about the new GPU surfaced as early as in November last year, when we first reported about AMD working on a successor to the RV770 before the RV870 comes to be. During the course of time, we were given several scoops about its specifications, with some reports hinting at increased stream processor and TMU counts alongside increased clock-speeds to give out early projections of as much as 20% performance increments, taking its single-GPU flagship product to the domain of the GeForce GTX 285, but as multiple sources confirm now, none of that looks plausible.

The RV790 is essentially a reworked RV770 with higher clock-speeds. AMD seems to have reworked the design of the RV770, perhaps altered or removed rudimentary components that facilitate slightly higher clock speeds. While samples of the RV790 are spec'd to run at 850 MHz, one can expect a slightly increased overclocking headroom. The samples also carried Qimonda IDGV1G-05A1F1C-40X memory chips that are originally specified to run at 1 GHz, yet running at 975 MHz on the samples. The core continues to have 800 stream processors, 40 TMUs and 16 ROPs. It features a 256-bit wide memory interface to support GDDR5, GDDR4 and GDDR3 memory standards. It will be built on the existing 55 nm TSMC manufacturing node. Products based on the RV790 can be expected only by April.

AMD today gave the first working demonstration of its six-core Opteron processor codenamed "Istanbul." The 45nm Istanbul server chips will succeed current "Shanghai" Opterons. Istanbul processors will use 6MB of L2 cache, and support HyperTransport and two channels of DDR2 memory per socket. The chips will fit into Socket F server motherboards. First live demonstration of Istanbul was performed on two server systems, one running four processors (24 cores total), and the second running with two processors (12 cores). AMD plans to release a full lineup of six-core Opterons based on Istanbul, including low-power HE versions and high-performance SE models, sometime in the second-half of 2009. Read the full story here.

Shuttle Inc., the market leader in the Mini-PC segment and manufacturer of Multi-Form-Factor solutions expands the CPU compatibility for the XPC Barebone SN78SH7. A newly published BIOS version now enables the use of AMD Phenom II processors. Besides current AM2 and AM2+ processors, the state-of-the-art 45nm models Phenom II X4 940 and Phenom II 920 with four cores are now also officially supported.

The compact XPC Barebone SN78SH7 with case dimensions of only 32.5 x 20.8 x 18.9 cm (DWH) uses brushed aluminium with a high-grade finish. The core of the robust Mini hides a NVIDIA GeForce 8200 chipset and the graphics processor of the same name. Picture and sound are transferred in excellent HD quality via the integrated HDCP-compliant HDMI interface. The package is rounded off by a PCI-Express 2.0 (x16) and one PCI slot, a Gigabit LAN interface and eSATA connectors. The Shuttle XPC Barebone SN78SH7 is now available at an RRP of EUR 281 (ex VAT). The Phenom II-supportive BIOS can be obtained from here.

AMD today announced that its stockholders approved a proposal to issue common stock and warrants to an affiliate of Mubadala Development Company PJSC, paving the way for AMD and the Advanced Technology Investment Company of Abu Dhabi to create "The Foundry Company".
With the stockholder approval received today, all closing conditions for the creation of "The Foundry Company" manufacturing joint venture have been met, and the transaction is expected to close by March 2, 2009.
AMD stockholders approved a proposal to issue 58 million shares of the company's common stock and warrants to purchase 35 million shares of its common stock and 35 million shares of the company's common stock upon exercise of those warrants to an affiliate of the Mubadala Development Company PJSC, on the terms described in the proxy statement related to the Special Meeting of Stockholders that was held today in Austin, Texas.

ASUS chose last month's CES event to announce its flagship gaming notebook, the W90. Usual high-end specifications aside, the most distinct component used in it is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2, AMD's flagship mobile graphics platform, which is on the brink of snatching the performance crown away from NVIDIA for the platform. A North American sales representative for ASUS tells GPU Café that the W90 will be available from February 23, which perhaps makes it the launch-date for the Mobility HD 4870 X2. It is also noted that the Mobility HD 4670 will be out around the same time, while Mobility HD 4850 will arrive a week or two later.

XtremeSystems forum member Kinc posted some early performance numbers relating to the Mobility HD 4870 X2, featured on the ASUS W90 with an Intel Core 2 Quad T9400, which effortlessly overclocked to 4 GHz on the notebook's stock cooling system. The Mobility HD 4870 X2 carried clock speeds of 600/900 MHz (core/memory). The notebook used Intel's X38 core-logic. At the said parameters, it was put through 3DMark 06. The notebook secured a score of 20,284 3DMarks at default setting. When released, the Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2 will replace NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTX SLI as the fastest mGPU solution, replicating a similar feat by its desktop cousin.

At tomorrow's IDC Cloud Computing Forum in San Francisco, AMD will host a panel discussion on "Building the Business Case for Cloud Computing: Understanding the Opportunities and Benefits." Representatives from Accenture, Amazon, AMD, Red Hat, The Shumacher Group, and IDC analyst Frank Gens will discuss strategies to successfully plot and initiate a cloud computing course. In addition, panelists will explore how cloud computing helps companies advance capacity and capabilities without significantly increasing investments.

"As datacenter demands continue to evolve toward web-based application and data delivery, IT costs and energy consumption can sky rocket. We believe businesses can see both cost-savings and workload efficiencies with a cloud computing environment, particularly when utilizing scalable, high value, power-efficient AMD platforms," said Margaret Lewis, director, commercial software solutions and strategy, AMD. "Next quarter, AMD will take energy-efficient computing to the next level by introducing an even lower power processor specifically designed for the unique demands of cloud computing environments."

Global motherboard and graphics card producer Micro-Star International (MSI) announced today that thirty one of its Socket AM2/AM2+ ready motherboards are now fully compatible with AMD's latest AM3 processors. These motherboards are based on both AMD and NVIDIA chipsets. Customers of the listed models only need to update their BIOS with the latest version, and don't have to purchase any new hardware. For more information about suitable motherboard SKUs and BIOS versions click here, or read the full story.

Following reports of AMD's next flagship GPU, the RV790 being pushed to April, a fresh report from Hardware-Infos suggests that its sibling, the RV740 will join the league of the company's product launches slated for April. Company sources tell Hardware-Infos that the company has no product-launches scheduled for the upcoming CeBIT event held in Germany. The report suggests constraints of TSMC, a major foundry partner for AMD's graphics product group (GPG), with regards to its 40 nm bulk manufacturing process, as a likely cause although this bit wasn't endorsed by the source.

Another source shed some light on the specifications of the two graphics processors. It is suggested that the RV790 has expanded machinery at its disposal, with 960 stream processors and 48 texture memory units. Engineering samples based on the said GPU are known to carry faster memory chips. The specifications coupled with the suggested higher clock speeds of 850/975 MHz (core/memory) help explain how the RV790 could manage to pose competition to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 accelerator. The RV740 on the other hand, is said to carry 640 stream processors, 32 texture memory units, and a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.

AMD has been working the ATI RV790 GPU for a while now. It appears to be like it will take a little longer for the company to release an SKU based on it. Contradicting earlier reports, it is known that the RV790-based SKUs stay within the Radeon HD 4800 series, and not form the HD 4900 series.

The flagship single-GPU product based on the RV790 is to be called Radeon HD 4890. Samples based on the RV790XT A11 are currently running at speeds of 850/975 MHz (core/memory). AMD is reportedly telling its partners that the RV790XT is expected to be around 20% faster than the RV770XT (HD 4870), and has NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 285 in its sights, for head-on competition. Additionally, AMD may force NVIDIA to reconsider its pricing, since the RV790XT is expected to be priced between US$199 to US$249, up to $150 cheaper than the GeForce GTX 285 in its current pricing. Unfortunately, one has to wait till April.

AMD found itself in a tricky situation with its launch schedule for the DDR3-supportive AM3 socket platform: the revision guide document for 10h family of processors disclosed a rather serious erratum with the processors, with the company not recommending the use of more than two DDR3-1333 memory modules in all, or more than one module per memory channel, stating unreliable operation as consequence (more here). We rose doubts on a certain statement in the document circling around what we saw as a potential solution to the problem, and hence sought the company's comment.

AMD replied to us with a set of things, not necessarily interrelated, though in some way connected to the erratum, and the company's approach towards the DDR3 memory standard:

• AMD confirms the issue as stated by the revision guide document, and is indeed working on a solution. The issue does not affect, in any way, using one DDR3-1333 memory module per channel
• The company has already specified the safest workaround for the issue: specifying the memory modules to run at the speeds of PC3-8500, 533 MHz (DDR3-1066). One can refer to hardware literature on how to do that
• AMD has given guidance to motherboard vendors on this issue. Some motherboards could rectify the issue by themselves, by operating the memory modules at PC3-8500 specifications. The incentive of tightening DRAM timings stays
• Good news for overclockers: You will be able to override the memory frequency control by motherboards, and can attempt to tweak frequencies at will. AMD product warranties, as always, don't cover damages caused by overclocking, even when overclocking is enabled via AMD Software
• Better news: Indications are that AMD is doing a lot more than creating a workaround for this issue, it may be devising a new feature altogether that, in the end, upholds the company's initiative to be enthusiast-friendly. Furthermore, AMD iterates that it is its intention to provide higher DDR3 frequencies as DDR3 becomes more prevalent

Barely a week into the introduction of the DDR3-supportive AM3 socket CPUs, the processors seem to be having design flaws. This, as circulated by AMD in its revision guide document for the 10h family of processors (found here, page 80). The issue, as described by AMD, centers around the DDR3 memory sub-system. On machines with more than one PC3-10600 (1333 MHz) memory module populating a memory channel, the users may experience unreliable operation. The company does not get into the specifics of the symptoms. This issue however, does not affect systems with a module per channel (one or two modules installed in the motherboard), and only those with three to four modules installed.

The AMD K10 memory controllers on AM3-socket processor provide a 128-bit wide memory interface (with DRAM Ganged mode enabled), which amount to two 64-bit wide memory channels. On most motherboards, four DIMM slots with two slots sharing a memory channel are present. With this issue, one is not recommended to use more than one DDR3-1333 memory module per channel. AMD recommends a quick fix for the issue for systems using more than one DDR3-1333 module per memory channel: to manually specify the memory to run at 533 MHz (1066 MHz DDR), and accordingly set DRAM timings. As a little compensation, one can tighten DRAM timings with the drop in frequency. AMD will fix this issue in the next stepping (sub-version) of the CPUs. The "x-factor" with this erratum revolves around DRAM voltage, a significant factor. One might note AMD saying "the processor memory subsystem may exhibit unreliable operation over the allowable VDDIO voltage range", which leads us to think if there is a potential workaround with adjusting the DRAM voltage beyond the allowable range (read: over-volting the memory). We hope to hear more from AMD on this.

UPDATE (02/13): AMD replied to the report, saying that work is in progress toward fixing the issue. While not getting into the specifics, AMD indicated to us that apart from addressing the issue, the company is also working toward something "which will make you 'feel cozy' about the DDR3 support". The statement is ambiguous, and is best left uninterpreted at this point in time.

ACTICA Inc., manufacturer of mission critical server memory products, announces the next generation DDR2-800/PC2-6400 ECC Registered for AMD Opteron Shanghai Platforms.

ACTICA's new DDR2-800 ECC REG are compatible to AMD Opteron Shanghai sever platforms such as Supermicro H8DMT, H8DMU+, H8DM3, H8DMA, H8DA3, H8DAi-2, Tyan S4985-E, S3992-E, S2927-E, S2915-E, S2912-E, S2937, S2935, and Asus KFSN4-DRE/SAS/iKV, KFSN4-DRE/iKVM.

• ACT4GER72E4G800S-DDR2-800 4GB ECC REG Samsung-chip
• ACT2GER72F8G800S---DDR2-800 2GB ECC REG Samsung-chip
• ACT1GER72A8G800S---DDR2-800 1GB ECC REG Samsung-chip

BIOSTAR MICROTECH INT'L CORP., a professional manufacturer of motherboards today announced the TA790GX A3+, the first AMD "Dragon Platform" qualified motherboard with next generation AMD AM3 Phenom II processors support.

The Phenom AM3 processors are able to support up to DDR3 1600MHz memory speed (when equipped with AMD 790FX northbridge), the TA790GX A3+ offers Dual x16 PCI-E 2.0 graphics interfaces to deliver up the latest ATI CrossFireX support for the ultimate gaming platform.

AMD today extended its Phenom II line-up with five new processors, including the industry's only 45nm triple-core CPUs and three new AMD Phenom II quad-core processors. Part of the fire breathing AMD Dragon platform, these new Phenom II chips fit in either AM2+ or AM3 sockets and support DDR2 or next generation DDR3 memory. The new triple-core and quad-core AMD Phenom II processors are available immediately with the following model numbers:

• AMD Phenom II X4 910 2.6GHz, 6MB of L3 cache
• AMD Phenom II X4 810 2.6GHz, 4MB of L3 cache - $175
• AMD Phenom II X4 805 2.5GHz, 4MB of L3 cache
• AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz, 6MB of L3 cache - $145
• AMD Phenom II X3 710 2.6GHz, 6MB of L3 cache - $125

All five Phenom II chips have the same 95W TDP.

Sapphire, the single largest add-in board partner for AMD, announced its FireStream 9270 GPGPU accelerator. Devices of this class exploit the general purpose computing capabilities of graphics processors, back them with a software architecture, and a programming environment to make for a dedicated number-crunching machine that holds rated computational power much higher than that of CPUs. Product lines in this class includes the AMD FireStream, that finds competition in NVIDIA's Tesla.

The appearance of the FireStream 9270 suggests it has been derived from the ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics accelerator, albeit different clock speeds, different drivers, four times the amount of memory, and connections. The core features 800 stream cores that churn out peak computational power of 1.2 TFLOPs (single precision floating-point) and 240 GFLOPs (double precision floating-point). The floating point format is in adherence to IEEE standards. It features 2 GB of GDDR5 memory running at 850 MHz, with a peak bandwidth of 108.8 GB/s. The FireStream 9270 is backed by AMD's Stream 1.3 SDK that can be currently downloaded for free. It supports OpenCL in Microsoft Windows and Linux environments. The accelerator will be released by Sapphire towards the end of February, at a price of $1499. Additionally, AMD is teaming up with server-builder Aprius to release a 4U rack chassis system that holds as many as eight FireStream 9270 accelerators that churn out a theoretical max computational power of 9.6 TFLOPs.

NVIDIA is planning a new high-end desktop chipset for the AMD processor platform: the nForce 980a SLI. The news validates some of the earliest roadmap slides of ASUS leaked to the media, showing a certain M4N82 Deluxe to feature the said chipset according to the specifications sheet. The chipset is built to feature on newer motherboards supporting the AM3 socket and DDR3 memory, though the one from ASUS supports DDR2 memory only, with no mention of a DDR3-supportive motherboard from the company.

VR-Zone juiced some more information about this new chipset, which suggests that the nForce 980a could be merely a re-branded nForce 780a SLI. Earlier reports also suggested the possibility of the 780a SLI successor to support the Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) feature that enhances overclocking the CPU using AMD's Overdrive software. With the 980a, NVIDIA will replace the markings on the package from "NF780A-SLI-N-A2" to "NF980A-SLI-A2". The company has also reportedly issued a notice to its partners:

The NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI SPP is an enthusiast-class high performance interface to AMD AM3 CPUs. It is RoHS-compliant. It includes 2×16 PCI Express 2.0 lanes (also configurable as 1 x16, 2 x8) and 3×1 PCI Express 1.0 lanes, 12 USB ports, six SATA ports, and single GigE. To ensure timely availability and flexibility, we encourage customers to qualify and release products using the NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI SPP.

The chipset will be available to motherboard manufacturers starting from March.

In the weeks to come, AMD will introduce its triple-core processors based on the 45 nm Heka core, starting off with the Phenom II X3 700 series. One of the first SKUs in the series would be the overclocker-friendly Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition. Based on the Heka core, it holds three x86 processing cores, 512 KB of L2 cache per core and a shared 6 MB L3 cache. The chip is specified to run at 2.80 GHz (200 MHz x 14.0), and features an unlocked bus frequency multiplier. It comes with a rated TDP of 95W. Turkish website Donanim Haber put an engineering sample carrying its specs to test on both DDR3 and DDR2 platforms based on Gigabyte's GA-MA790FXT-UD5 and MA790FX-DQ6, to find out its mettle.

Conceived to be a successor to the RV770 graphics processor, the RV790 emerged out of various media-leaks as the next big thing for ATI, in its never-ending pursuit for market leadership. Information on this mysterious new GPU has been trickling in at leisure, and it has been shaping up to be a current-generation GPU built using newer manufacturing technologies that could make it cheaper to produce. What we do know about RV790XT based engineering samples so far, is that they carry faster memory chips that are rated to operate a higher frequencies, 1 GHz to be precise, but specified by AMD to run at 975 MHz.

Fresh details sourced by Hardware-Infos from internal sources point out to the possibility of AMD stepping up the core clock speeds by as much as 100 MHz, taking it to 850 MHz. The ramp in clock speeds however, come at the expense of increasing core voltage to 1.3 Volts. There have been several reports speculating the core voltage so far, on of which points at 1.23V for 750 MHz. Another grey-area for now is the RV790's shader domain, with a certain level of ambiguity surrounding stream processor count. All of this leads us to believe that AMD hasn't finalized the specifications of RV790 and could be racking its brains on this one. AMD is expected to make critical announcements on its new GPUs in March and might choose the CeBIT event as the ideal platform.

Beating its chest on the "massive headroom" (read: clock speed increment potential) its newest line of processors, the Phenom II have, it was about time the company utilized the said headroom to carve out new SKUs. With the AM2+ exclusive Phenom II X4 940 already showing impressive overclocking potential, while shipping with a clock speed of 3.00 GHz, the company is planning to increase stock clock speeds in increments of 100 MHz (0.5x multiplier) with a string of SKUs post Phenom II X4 950. This according to the insider sources a German website called AMD News caught up with.

All the upcoming processors will be built on the AM3 package, making them compatible with DDR3 and DDR2 memory standards. With the Phenom II X4 950 being clocked at 3.10 GHz, succeeding SKUs take 100 MHz steps, starting from a Phenom II X4 960 at 3.20 GHz to a Phenom II X4 990 at 3.50 GHz. Despite the high clock speeds, the chips will continue to maintain rated TDPs of 125W. At some point within the succession, AMD will crank up the HyperTransport interconnect speed from 1,800 MHz to 2,000 MHz. The launch-schedule for these processors will be spread throughout 2009.