CPU, APU & Chipsets - Page 213

Intel's forthcoming Core i7 lineup of codenamed Nehalem processors are not due to go on sale till the second part of next month.

However, that didn't stop us getting our hands on an engineering sample Core i7 920 processor clocked at 2.66GHz (133MHz x 20) from a secret bunker hidden well underground... :)

We've talked a fair amount about Intel's Nehalem microarchitecure recently, but what of AMD's own foray into the 45nm CPU playing field?

Courtesy of this article from Expreview, AMD appears to be adopting a rather interesting branding method for its upcoming SKUs.

AMD's foray into 45nm CPUs is expected to set sail, at some point, during the remainder of this year. Those all famous engineering samples have been set loose again though, with the 45nm Phenom X4, codename Deneb, CPUs in 2.2 GHz and 2.3GHz flavours, being captured at ITOCP.

Here, the 2.2 GHz iteration, running with its 11.0x multiplier and a CPU-Z indicated core voltage of 1.224V, braves its shiny face for the camera:

As it is, AMD are really struggling to attract much interest in their underwhelming lineup of Phenom desktop processors. The only good thing they have going for them is the pricetag, making it easier for people on a budget to become a part of the quad-core crowd.

If they think that's what's going to keep them afloat though, they'd better re-think their strategy, and very soon. Intel are planning to close the gap entirely next quarter by releasing new entry-level Core 2 Duo and Quad processors that will be as cheap as chips!

Talk of a Core 2 Quad Q8000 lineup is getting stronger, with a Q8200 offering to kick it off which sits at 2.33GHz and contains 4MB of shared L2 cache on a 1333MHz FSB. The most hurtful aspect of this as far as AMD's Phenom range go, is the price. Several asian websites are reporting that the Q8200 will come in at a mere $203, just slightly above what AMD charge at the moment for its 2.2GHz X4s/2.4GHz X3s.

A Polish end-user by the nickname of MILANS has taken his AMD Phenom X4 9850 processor and overclocked it all the way to 3710MHz.

A report states that Pawe³ Milanowski (aka MILANS) only needed the aid of water cooling to take the factory clocked 2.5GHz all the way up to a world record speed of 3.71GHz, which is 212MHz bus speed x 17.5 multiplier.

He used a DFI LANPARTY DK 790FX motherboard with the CPU core voltage set to 1.48V.

Arctic Cooling has just taken the covers off its newest CPU cooler called the Freezer Xtreme.

It is a monster of a cooler with a total of eight heatpipes, 102 fins and it comes with a quiet PWM 12cm fan, which will adjust power between 800 and 1500 RPM according to processor temperature.

Arctic include brackets for both Intel and AMD processors including socket 775, 939, AM2 and AM2+ and claims that this cooler can handle up to 160 watts which is a staggeringly large amount of cooling capability.

Fudzilla claims it knows the future like a crystal ball (okay, they didn't say that, we did...) and says that Intel has confirmed that it plans to release its first dual-core small Atom processor in Q3 of this year.

The report suggests that it will be just like an Atom 230 processor with an extra core, both running at 1.6GHz with a 533MHz FSB and a total of 1MB of L2 cache (2 x 512KB) that is not shared between each core.

There are reports floating around the Internet saying that Intel will release its X58 Express chipset in Q4 of this year.

It is said to be the first chipset to support Intel's desktop Nehalem based Bloomfield processor, which is based on 45nm process technology with four cores, integrated with memory controller, Hyper Threading with up to eight processing threads and 8M cache.

It will be coupled with the ICH10R southbridge as well as triple channel DDR3 memory and dual PCIe 2.0 X16 or quad PCIe 2.0 X8 configurations.

VIA announced its new processor architecture, code-named Isaiah.

The processor according to Centaur President Glenn Henry (Centaur is VIA's subsidiary CPU design company) has double or more the processing power of current generation C7 processors. The C7 VIA CPU is already available in the market and in use in many of the Ultra-mobile PC's and net-book devices such as the GIGABYTE U60 UMPC (reviewed here).

The truly remarkable feature of this new architecture is that it is drop-in compatible with current boards, offering double the performance, but at the same power (wattage) usage. This will mean current systems already being sold and used, can be re-aligned to contain the new Isaiah processor, giving the manufacturer's two product SKUs for the design costs of one. See the clip below.

Theo Valich over at TG Daily is running a story regarding Nvidia's forthcoming chipsets for AMD Socket AM2+ processors.

Apparently Zotac leaked information out early regarding the nForce 750a chipset which is the first AMD chipset to be release by Nvidia since the nForce 590 SLI way back in May 2006. Theo reckons that it looks like that SNAP (Strategic Nvidia-AMD Partnership) isn't dead after all. That's pretty clear, wouldn't you think though? Anyway...