“In last few years it looked like AMD lost its bearings in CPU market. No one expected that company, that is in constant transition, financial problems and without complete product portfolio, can produce interesting, equivalent and concurrent product. Phenom CPUs with K10 micro architecture didn’t claim speed crown from Intel, but they were significant step forward compared to “worn out” K8 cores. We must be aware of the fact that every processor is result of compromise between investments and goals. Probably K10 would be better product if it had larger L2 and L3 cache memory, with better and larger Branch Target Buffers, with different cache policies that are favoring intensive operations with cache memory, but in that case Phenom, that was manufactured in 65nm process, wouldn’t give adequate results…”Here are some more Processor articles from around the web:
- AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition @ MadBoxPC
- More phenomenal AMD marketing @ Hardware Analysis
- Phenom II @ Icrontic
- Here Be Dragons – AMD Phenom II @ Hardware Zone
- AMD Phenom II X4 940 & 920 Processors Reviewed @ EOC
- Intel Core i7 920 Processor @ iXBT
A little competition never hurt anyone
The competition between AMD and Intel has heated up thanks to the new Phenom II, though perhaps not in exactly the way people wanted. The performance crown still rests firmly on Intel’s head, the Phenom II just can’t reach that high. The value crown is pretty much glued to AMD’s head, as it has been for a while now. It’s just that the increased performance of the Phenom II coupled with the limited price increase compared to previous models has settled it even more firmly on AMD. Check out InsideHW for even more performance measures from AMD’s newest.