As most of us know, AMD was hoping to shove the triple core Phenom series (8x00) out their factory doors by next month. However, it would seem as though things have changed over at AMD. The Phenom 8400 (2.1GHz) and 8600 (2.3GHz) will both be launched at CeBIT 2008 (which will be hosted in early March). However, AMD may ditch the 8700 in favor of a B3 stepping 8750, accompanied by an 8450 and 8550 from the same stepping.

Any processor from the B3 stepping should fix up the hated TLB issue that early Phenom processors suffer. This B3 stepping will also show up in quad core parts. The Phenom 9700 (2.4GHz) and 9900 (2.6GHz) will be replaced by the B3 based 9750 and 9950, respectively.

Advanced Micro Devices got some much-needed good news this week when Gateway announced that it's trading in Intel chips for AMD Phenom quad-core processors in two new high-end desktop machines. Gateway, which has been mostly an Intel-only company for years, yesterday unveiled AMD-based GM and GT series desktop systems. And for a microprocessor company that has been struggling with missed shipment dates, financial woes and a slide in mind share, this is welcome news, according to industry analysts. Focusing on "media-hungry users," the new Gateway GM5664 desktop is geared toward gamers and users interested in video editing or watching live TV online. Available at U.S. retailers for $1,149.99, the computer offers 2.3GHz AMD Phenom 9600 Processor, 3GB DDR2 memory (2x1024MB modules and 2x512MB modules), 2x500GB 7200 rpm hard drives, ATI Radeon HD 2400XT 256MB discrete video and hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD player and SuperMulti DVD-RW DL drive. The Gateway GT5662, which costs $749.99, is a multimedia lite machine. This desktop uses the 2.20GHz lower-power AMD Phenom quad-core 9500 processor, a 500GB hard drive and its own SuperMulti drive to enable users to burn content onto DVDs or CDs.

HKEPC has posted information about the AMD Phenom product schedule for this fiscal year. Aside from the original Chinese article, the graphics are written in crisp and legible English. All the information you need is there.

Due to the TLB (translation lookaside buffer) bug, AMD has postponed the launch of its upcoming quad-core Phenom 9700 and 9900 CPUs to the second quarter of 2008, however the company is planning to showcase them at CeBIT 2008 along with the fixed B3 stepping Phenoms, according to DigiTimes citing sources at the motherboard makers. AMD will also showcase the energy-efficient Phenom 9100e. Advanced Micro Devices is confident that it has solved the bug in the B3 stepping revision, but since the company has not yet revealed an actual shipment date for the new stepping, it is unclear whether the showcase will also mark the new beggining of the AMD Phenom epoch. CeBIT 2008 will take place in Hannover Germany 4-9 March, 2008.

Industry analysts, and sources, have speculated about the possible creation of a more formal relationship between IBM and AMD. Such a relationship may result in a possible merger between the two companies in the future. An IBM takeover, or joint venture company may result. Such a merger would allow IBM to maintain ties to some management in the computer industry as the company moves more toward technology services. The creation of some sort of more formal association could help inject confidence into AMD which has not reported a quarterly profit since mid-2006. IBM and AMD have been technology partners for several years, and are currently completing a joint manufacturing plant in Malta.

Today, AMD announced the AMD RS780 IGP chipset in China, and first benchmark results are already starting to spread around the web. Initial tests of 3Dmark05, 3Dmark06 and F.E.A.R. under Windows VISTA Ultimate using AMD Athlon X2 5000+, 2GB PC2-6400 Corsair memory and the integrated graphics on a 690G board and RS780 board show some spectacular differences:

3DMARK05 @690G=1105, @RS780=2495
Vista Experience Index @690G=3.1, @RS780=3.5
FEAR DEMO @690=15FPS, @RS780=29FPS
3DMARK 06 @690G : Score=321, SM2:147, HDR/SM3=0, CPU score = 1860
3DMARK 06 @RS780: Score=1162, SM2:380, HDR/SM3=441, CPU score 1869

In terms of 3D graphics performance, AMD RS780 is 2x faster than AMD 690G. In 3Dmark06, the difference is shocking, 1162 vs 321. That is 3.6x difference.

At the AMD Taiwan Embedded Forum this week, AMD announced a significant number of platform-stable, energy-efficient additions to its embedded roadmap. The high performance AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core processors TL-56 and TL-62 can deliver the exceptional leading edge 64-bit application performance and low power requested by designers in the industrial control, digital signage and point-of-sale embedded markets, while the energy-efficient AMD Sempron processor 3700+ offers additional performance in a consistent and very low-power thermal envelope for value-based designs.

AMD chief executive officer Hector Ruiz today uncovered that the TLB (Translation Lookaside Buffer) bug in all Phenom and Barcelona quad-core processors has been fixed. According to Ruiz, the fixed B3 stepping CPUs are "running through the paces internally" at this time with engineering samples expected to be shipped to customers within "2 to 3 weeks". Volume production is scheduled to begin "later in the quarter" and first systems with the fixed processors should become available late in Q1, president Dirk Meyer said. Production volume of Barcelona and Phenom quad-core will be about double of the nearly 400,000 units that were manufactured during Q4, CFO Bob Rivet noted. As previously reported, the higher speed and triple-core Phenoms will be postponed for the end of the first and the beginning of the second quarter. Hector Ruiz also commented on the company's 45nm progress. Ruiz said that AMD's first 45 nm Opterons have been produced and the company is targeting for H2 2008 roll out.

AMD today reported fourth quarter 2007 revenue of $1.770 billion, an 8 percent increase compared to the third quarter of 2007 and flat compared to the fourth quarter of 2006. In the fourth quarter of 2007, AMD reported a net loss of $1.772 billion, or $3.06 per share, and an operating loss of $1.678 billion. Fourth quarter net loss included charges of $1.675 billion, or $2.89 per share, of which $1.669 billion were operating charges. The non-cash portion of the fourth quarter charges was $1.606 billion. In the third quarter of 2007, AMD reported revenue of $1.632 billion, a net loss of $396 million, and an operating loss of $226 million. In the fourth quarter of 2006, AMD reported revenue of $1.773 billion, a net loss $576 million, and an operating loss of $529 million.

AMD is lining up several energy efficient variants of its quad-core Phenom and dual-core Athlon CPUs to launch late this quarter or early in the second quarter of 2008. The low-power Phenom 9100e is scheduled for release in February or March this year and will come with a core frequency of 1.8GHz, DDR2 1066 memory controller and TDP of 65W. At the beginning of the second quarter, AMD will phase out the 9100e and launch the 9150e, which offers the same specifications, but will probably be based on the B3 stepping revision. In addition to the 9100e and 9150e, the company will also launch three dual-core low-power CPUs: Athlon 4850e (2.5GHz, 1MB L2 cache and DDR2 800), Athlon 4450e (2.3GHz, 1MB L2 cache and DDR2 800) and Athlon 4050e (2.1GHz, 1MB L2 cache and DDR 800). In other news, AMD is also set to launch two 45W single-core CPUs: Athlon BE-1640 with a core frequency of 2.7GHz and L2 cache of 512KB later this month, and will follow with the Athlon BE-1660 (2.8GHz, 512KB) in the second quarter. With low-power versions of AMD's next-generation CPU architecture showing up, the company will begin to phase out some previous CPUs including the dual-core Athlon X2 BE-2400, BE-2350 and BE-2300, and single-core Athlon BE-1620, Athlon 64 4000+ and 3800+. AMD will announce final order dates in the second quarter this year.

DivX, a digital media company, today announced a licensing agreement with semiconductor supplier AMD. This agreement will allow AMD to include DivX video technology with specific AMD Xilleon processors to power a broad range of next-generation digital TVs worldwide. "We are committed to delivering a true multimedia experience with AMD Xilleon processors providing excellent visual quality and interoperability across a number of high-definition digital TVs and platforms," said Dave Di Orio, corporate vice president and general manager for AMD's DTV Division. "DivX video is a highly attractive feature that we believe complements AMD technology to offer real value to our DTV OEM customers and consumers."

Although AMD has already completed the hardware for its next generation IGP chipset, RS780, the company is still waiting on drivers to support its new Hybrid CrossFireX technology. As a result the motherboards will be launched first in China on January 23, while the launch date in other countries will be set after the driver is complete. Since Hybrid CrossFireX technology is a major feature of the RS780 chipset, AMD hopes to give the technology the best introduction to the market it can. However, any significant delay in shipments could end up hurting AMD's profits and momentum. Therefore, the company has decided to adopt a strategy of selling the motherboards in certain regions first. Final Hybrid CrossFireX drivers are expected to be distributed to AMD's partners by the middle of February, with the worldwide launch of the RS780 to take place before the end of February, if everything goes by plan.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will report fourth- quarter results next week with Wall Street projecting bigger losses at the struggling chip giant. Analysts expect AMD to report a loss of 36 cents on revenue of $1.79 billion, compared with a loss of 4 cents, on revenue of 1.77 billion in the year-ago period, according to Thomson Financial. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has been struggling to become profitable over the past year as it faced stiffer competition from archrival Intel and grappled with the cost of a major acquisition. AMD reported a wider-than-expected third-quarter loss of $396 million in October, largely due to a $120 million charge for its merger with ATI Technologies in 2006. The company has also struggled with product roll-out delays and mounting operating costs that some analysts warned were not sustainable. Analyst also foretell that AMD could bounce back as a stronger competitor, especially with the graphics technologies it now has after the ATI acquisition. The company also got a boost recently from an Abu Dhabi firm, which invested $622 million in AMD. Executives vowed last month that AMD will be back on its feet in 2008, and that recent production missteps will not be repeated.

You may have seen a few online headlines today indicating "AMD Phenom processor delays." AMD sent Legit Reviews an e-mail as they would like to clarify where things stand with this on-going roll-out of new true quad-core and triple-core processors.

• AMD launched its highest-volume versions of AMD Phenom quad-core processors in mid-November (models 9500 and 9600), and we shipped hundreds of thousands in Q4 2007. OEMs demonstrated production AMD Phenom processor-based desktops during 2008 International CES this week.
• For the enthusiast market, AMD then launched a performance tunable "Black Edition" of the 9600 model in December 2007 to address the enthusiast market. This was an additional quad-core product added to our Q4 roadmap and is now available on major e-tailer sites.
• AMD will now introduce the AMD Phenom 9700 and 9900 models in Q2 2008. This decision was based on OEM input on how AMD should prioritize its next two waves of AMD Phenom processor models. Based on these customer inputs, AMD will continue to prioritize volume-based Phenom products, including the AMD Phenom triple-core processor introduction for consumer and commercial markets this quarter, and now a new energy-efficient 65W AMD Phenom 9000e series processor in this quarter (instead of Q2). AMD Phenom 9700 and 9900 models will immediately follow next quarter.
• Our OEM customers are placing more priority on our energy-efficient and triple-core processors, where the volumes and ability to differentiate products take precedence over the more prestigious, but much lower volume, higher performance quad-core products.

New York state launched a formal investigation of Intel Corp on Thursday, to determine if the world's No. 1 chipmaker broke state and U.S. antitrust laws to squeeze out its main rival, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said his office issued a broad subpoena seeking information about whether Intel coerced customers to exclude AMD from the worldwide market for microprocessors. "Our investigation is focused on determining whether Intel has improperly used monopoly power to exclude competitors or stifle innovation," Cuomo said in a statement. Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy confirmed the company had received the subpoena and would "work very hard" to comply with the subpoena, in keeping with its normal practice. "We believe our business practices are lawful and that the microprocessor market is competitive and is functioning as one would expect a competitive market to function," Mulloy said. AMD said it had been contacted by Cuomo's office. "I can confirm that we have received a subpoena, too," said spokesman Drew Prairie.

Still no specs yet unfortunately, but AMD is showing off its Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card at CES. As you can see, the card has been installed in a system, which would suggest its working - to some extent at least.

AMD today unveiled a new family of AMD Xilleon panel processors designed to provide unrivaled visual quality in liquid crystal display (LCD) digital TVs. AMD's new panel processors deliver advanced motion compensation and frame rate conversion technology for excellent image processing, resulting in a rich, immersive entertainment experience.

Denali Software, a world-leading provider of electronic design automation (EDA) software and intellectual property (IP), today announced it has licensed its NAND Flash solution to AMD. Per this agreement, AMD is licensing Denali Databahn NAND Flash controller and Spectra flash file system for inclusion in next-generation processors for handheld devices, providing high performance, simplified system development and low development cost benefits to handheld manufacturers.

And now our first post for year 2008 coming from the AMD corner, a story which all AMD admirers will like. Advanced Micro Devices has reached a collaboration agreement with the Israeli Commex, a chip company founded two years ago by president and CEO Tal Horowitz together with brothers Yehuda and Zohar Zisapel who joined him as seed investors in the company. Horowitz comes from the Intel development center in Haifa, where he was involved as a senior member of the development team of the dual core processors. Now he is going to work for AMD. Under the deal, the chipset which Commex develops for multi-core processors will be distributed together with AMD's next-gen processor solutions. Commex is expected to begin continuous production in May of this year.

AMD's RS780 and NVIDIA's MCP 78 IGP chipsets are scheduled to go head-to-head in the first quarter of 2008, however, performance of the MCP 78S is reportedly below that of the RS780, while the higher-end MCP 78U is causing issues due to its higher thermal dissipation giving AMD the advantage over the chipset battle, according to various sources at motherboard makers sited by DigiTimes. The RS780 is reported to have 15-20% better performance than the MCP 78S in 3DMark 05 and 06 tests, while the higher-end MCP 78U cannot function normally with the original passive northbridge heatpipe due to the higher core frequencies of the graphics engine. Adopting a larger heatpipe or fan will cause costs to rise significantly, a heat problem which is present in all NVIDIA chipsets. Additionally, motherboard makers have not yet taken delivery of MCP 78 chipset supplies, which means that the original launch schedule of motherboards might have to be postponed back to the end of January or beginning of February. On the other hand, RS780 motherboards will be ready to ship in January 23 next year. AMD has also fixed an issue with the SB700 southbridge caused by a malfunction of the internal clock generator. Although motherboard makers will need to add an external one to solve the problem for now, AMD has notified its partners that the issue will be fixed in an updated SB710 chipset.

AMD has recently outlined the phase-out schedule for several of its Athlon 64 X2 CPUs, while the Athlon brand name will be re-purposed for upcoming dual-core CPUs based on the K10 core. AMD will stop taking orders for Athlon 64 X2 6400+ black edition and 89W version Athlon 64 X2 6000+ processors in the first quarter of 2008. Last orders for 125W Athlon 64 X2 6000+ and Athlon 64 X2 5600+ processors will be at the end of the first quarter. AMD will also stop taking orders for Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and 4000+ processors by the end of this year and will launch a 65W Athlon 64 X2 4600+ clocked at 2.3GHz with 1MB L2 cache in the second quarter of 2008. AMD will also launch a new series of dual-core products based on its next-generation architecture, Athlon 6000, in the later half of second quarter next year. First to launch will be the Athlon 6250 and 6050 with 1MB L2 cache and 2MB shared L3 cache.

AMD promised that Phenom could be operated in most socket AM2 motherboards. Tom's Hardware lab has tried running the new quad core on ten different products - and failed with most of them. The brands, Asus, Biostar, Epox, Foxconn, Gigabyte, MSI and Winfast (Foxconn) usually provide updates for their platforms when new processors are released. Phenom has been available for one month now and even after a BIOS update, most of the boards fail to run the native quad-core processor right. Read the full story here.

AMD has recently adjusted its triple-core CPU model numbers and launch dates. AMD will launch two B2 stepping triple-core CPUs, Phenom 8600 and 8400 in March of next year, while in the second quarter, the company will launch three more models, Phenom 8700, 8650 and 8450. The Phenom 8400 and 8600 will feature core frequencies of 2.1GHz and 2.3GHz, respectively, while the Phenom 8700 will clock at 2.4GHz. Phenom 8650 and 8450 will be based on B3 stepping cores, and will have frequencies of 2.3GHz and 2.1GHz, respectively. All five CPUs will have a 95W TDP. AMD declined to comment on unannounced products, but noted that the triple-core CPUs provide consumers with more choices and will extend the market's acceptance of multi-core technology.

AMD has recently notified its partners that the launch of higher-end quad-core Phenom processors, including the 9700 and 9900, will be postponed to the second quarter of 2008 from the original schedule of early 2008, according to DigiTimes. However, whether AMD's triple-core Toliman series CPUs will also see delay will be the key decision for the company, since Toliman offers a high price/performance ratio compared with Intel's quad-core CPUs. A delay for Toliman will hurt AMD the most. The reason for the delay of 9700 and 9900 is because AMD has not yet been able to solve the translation lookaside buffer (TLB) erratum found in the chips.

MADBOXPC.COM claims to have some pictures and specs for AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 3450, 3470 and 3650 graphics cards. The HD 3450, pictured below on the left, uses the RV620 core manufactured using a 55nm process. It will have a core clock of 525MHz with 256MB of 64-bit DDR2 memory running at 800MHz DDR, and apparently it will also feature a DisplayPort output - the price is expected to be around $50. The HD 3470, shown in the middle, features the same RV620 core, although it is expected to run at above 600MHz and have 512MB of 64-bit GDDR3 memory running at 1000MHz DDR, with a price tag of around $60. Finally, the HD 3650, which is shown below on the right, is equipped with the RV635 core, which is also built using a 55nm process, and will run at 800MHz on the XT version and 600MHz on the Pro version. The card is expected to have 256-512MB of 128-bit GDDR3 memory running at 2GHz DDR, and will sell for about $100. Interestingly, there is no mention of DisplayPort despite earlier reports that it will feature on the card, so it may only be used on certain versions.