AMD to Reveal Callisto based Phenom II X2 at Computex

[gaurang]

The chip manufacturer will be unveiling two of its Callisto based processors in June.

Read on

[Mul.]

This is good news. There's a big gap in AMD's portfolio between the £55 AMD Athlon 64 X2 7850+ 2.80GHz and £100 Phenom II X3 710 2.6GHz CPU's. It would be nice to see the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition appear at around the £80-90 mark with subsequent lower binned models priced down in £5-15 decrements towards the X2 7850+ Black Edition.With the Phenom II X2's in place, Intel will have some pretty stiff competition in the mainstream segments.

I suspect that this is the reason why Intel is releasing the Pentium E6000 series

[Mul.]

Just to add to this, xbitlabs has got hold of Phenom II X2 550 and Athlon II X2 250 CPU's. They've confirmed that the roadmaps were correct in that the Phenom II X2 is a Deneb with two cores cut, while the Athlon II X2 is an all new core with no L3 cache but with 2 x 1mb L2 Cache.

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/dis...lon-ii-x2.html

Their brief testing shows the Phenom II X2 550 having a slight edge over the Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8GHz but the L3'less Athlon II trailing behind a bit. The lack of the 3rd and 4th cores allowed them to overclock the aformentioned CPU's to 3.98GHz 1.475V and 3.90GHz 1.500V respectively. I suppose we'll need more information before we can make any form of assumptions but if AMD were to price the Phenom II X2 at around £80 and the Athlon II X2 at around £60, they're onto a winner

Will also be interesting to see how the Athlon II X2 compares against the 65nm Phenom based Athlon 64 X2 7000's

[Rastalovich]

These things got some great AM3/DDR3 mobos to plug into yet ?

[Mul.]

There's a fair few good DDR3 boards around already. We could do with some more DDR3 790GX's though

[djw746]

Originally Posted by name='Mul.'

There's a fair few good DDR3 boards around already. We could do with some more DDR3 790GX's though

They are coming in mass as people are investing in Phenom II. Just because I am curious in Instant-on OS this seems interesting. And it should also be a fair offering.

http://www.dvhardware.net/article35500.html

[Mul.]

Yeah, these are among the few that are already available to buy

Sounds like what Asus has been applying to their motherboards. From what I've heard, having the feature enabled on the Asus BIOS increases overall boot time from power on to windows loading bar. It's a nice feature for people to have, particularly if their Windows install has messed up and in need of assistance, or just want to access something quickly.

[Rastalovich]

Sweet, feel this platform need much more reviewing. We seem to jump on the latest i7 (0.05% increase in performance) Intel cpus like they're the next great thing.

[Mul.]

I wouldn't go as far as saying that the i7 only yields a 0.05% performance increase over other platforms. Gaming is not it's strongest point but wherever it's architecture along with it's Hyperthreading can be utilised it really comes into it's own.

Phenom II's got plenty of coverage since January if you look in the right places. The main problem lies with a lot of users who have been so blinded by Intel being the top performer for nearly two and a half years that they didn't even notice that Phenom II was starting to bring home some wins!

About a year ago, I wrote an AMD vs Intel article with equivalent CPU's at different clockspeeds. I intend to do another this summer with a wider range of CPU's including Phenom II. My own experience with AM2+ is that it's a very capable platform that actually has a future unlike LGA775. If you're an overclocking enthusiast, it really is the answer to your prayers as the tweaking options are much wider and the performance increases as a result are very rewarding. It was a breath of fresh air moving away from the dull days of whacking up the FSB till it can't take anymore.

[Rastalovich]

Originally Posted by name='Mul.'

I wouldn't go as far as saying that the i7 only yields a 0.05% performance increase over other platforms. Gaming is not it's strongest point but wherever it's architecture along with it's Hyperthreading can be utilised it really comes into it's own.

To what extent ? I mean in any benchmarkers I've seen, gaming and non-gaming, there isn't anything that I can't compete with, or even beat to the extent of a measily 0.05 % (or so) - as a figure to throw out vS the outlay.

Originally Posted by name='Mul.'

Phenom II's got plenty of coverage since January if you look in the right places. The main problem lies with a lot of users who have been so blinded by Intel being the top performer for nearly two and a half years that they didn't even notice that Phenom II was starting to bring home some wins!

That's pretty much a contradiction in terms. Getting plenty of coverage, but u gotta find it.