It always seems that the worse a company does, the more information it divulges. We saw this behavior with Intel at the end of the Pentium 4 era, and we're definitely seeing it now with AMD. Enjoy it while it lasts, because it sure makes the industry a lot more exciting to talk about.
Today's disclosures are many of the things we alluded to in our last article about AMD's future, what we called The Road Ahead. If you were waiting for us to fill in the blanks, this article will do just that.
Barcelona is the second CPU to plug into what AMD is calling its 2nd generation Opteron platform, it will have one more socket-compatible successor before the platform is retired:
The first Barcelona processors available will be the HE (Energy Efficient) and standard performance CPUs, running at speeds of 2.0GHz or lower at launch:
In Q4 of this year AMD will introduce the SE (High Performance) Barcelona parts, running at 2.3GHz and above.
AMD is doing its best to sugar coat the low clock speed launch by saying that it's addressing the majority of the market at these clocks, but the fact of the matter is that AMD would be singing a different tune if it was able to achieve higher clock speeds at launch.
Today's disclosures are many of the things we alluded to in our last article about AMD's future, what we called The Road Ahead. If you were waiting for us to fill in the blanks, this article will do just that.
Barcelona Update
Before getting into the new stuff, AMD gave us a brief update on Barcelona, whose launch is now hopefully less than a month away.Barcelona is the second CPU to plug into what AMD is calling its 2nd generation Opteron platform, it will have one more socket-compatible successor before the platform is retired:
The first Barcelona processors available will be the HE (Energy Efficient) and standard performance CPUs, running at speeds of 2.0GHz or lower at launch:
In Q4 of this year AMD will introduce the SE (High Performance) Barcelona parts, running at 2.3GHz and above.
AMD is doing its best to sugar coat the low clock speed launch by saying that it's addressing the majority of the market at these clocks, but the fact of the matter is that AMD would be singing a different tune if it was able to achieve higher clock speeds at launch.
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Lord Evermore - Sunday, July 29, 2007 - link
What the heck are RDDR and UDDR? My only guess is the U might stand for the UMA design, but I don't know if that would be preferred for the server or workstation.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 - link
RDDR = Registered DDRUDDR = Unbuffered DDR
Take care,
Anand
Martimus - Thursday, August 2, 2007 - link
Ok, what is OoO? I couldn't find it with a search on Google.Spartan Niner - Saturday, August 4, 2007 - link
OoO is "out-of-order" referring to OoOE, "out-of-order-execution"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_order_executio...">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_order_executio...
Martimus - Monday, August 6, 2007 - link
Thanks.xpose - Saturday, July 28, 2007 - link
This is the best future roadmap article I have ever read. I am actually excited. No really.najames - Friday, July 27, 2007 - link
I am an AMD fanboy, of 7 computers I have at home, only the 5 year old laptop has an Intel chip now. Dual cores are actually likely all I REALLY need. That said, I am sick of a bunch of hype and no new products. It's all blow and no show. I don't care about years down the road because it could all change between now and then.AMD/ATI could be a good thing too if they make good, polished drivers, 100% working for what was promised. How about throwing people a bone to make them switch, maybe even make some kick butt Linux drivers too.
We were all on an AMD bus and nobody has been driving since the X2 chip. They taunted Intel and handed out huge bonuses, but forgot about any new development. I have to credit Intel, they kicked butt with Core 2, and seem to be doing more butt kicking going forward.
I watched Hector on CNBC last night and he didn't look like he had a clue what was going on. Granted they weren't asking him details of any processors, but he was dodging basic business questions. Why do I have several hundred shares of AMD?
Regs - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
Because those relatively cheap shares, compared to Intel's, might be worth hundreds of times more one day from that stuff you call blow. Blow = prospects in business terms.
I would say the same thing as you did though at first. It's obvious AMD and ATi's pipeline dried up and unfortunately both consecutively. You can argue that the 2900XT is a good card, performs well, etc..etc.. but that doesn't explain why AMD offers crapware for main stream (where the real money is). As for AMD's CPU line up...well..you can only sell old for so long in the technology sector without taking a hit.
kilkennycat - Friday, July 27, 2007 - link
.... dump ATi. The marriage made in hell. New products unable to meet schedule and with inferior performance, thus no way of rapidly recovering development costs by pricing for performance.Dave Orton sure did a neat sell-job on AMD, walking away with $$millions when AMD paid a 20% premium for a chronically non-performing company barely managing to eke out some tiny profits during the last couple of years. No wonder Mr. Orton was finally shown the door.
kleinwl - Friday, July 27, 2007 - link
What is the problem with AMD, did they not receive enough feedback that UVD is a "must have" on high end units. I don't want to have choose between good gaming performance and movie performance... I am paying a ridiculous premium already for hardware... the least they could do is make sure it has all the bells and whistles.