Gigacore
Dreamweaver
AMD's Phil Hester has recently criticized what he calls the "core for cores sake" approach to churning out microprocessors. In light of those comments comes an interesting rumor about a new triple-core desktop microprocessor that AMD could be releasing as early as January.
According to the Inquirer, the so-called Phenom X3 -- which would have three processing engines as opposed to the quad-core Phenom FX series -- could give the company some much-needed leverage against Intel, at least from a marketing perspective. While it's a relatively easy matter to disable one core, Intel wouldn't be able to effectively produce a tri-core processor at this point because of the way the company currently approaches quad-core -- slapping two dual-core dies into a single-socket CPU. AMD, on the other hand, can do tri-core due to its Direct Connect architecture, which provides a dedicated channel between the CPU cores and from each CPU out to the system memory.
While it's still unclear whether the rumored tri-core chips will simply be based quad-core chip with one core disabled, it's largely believed that the processors will at least tout the same architectural selling-points as their quad-core relatives like the shared L3 cache and HyperTransport technology.
That said, a triple-core chip wouldn't necessarily be a homerun for AMD. Other than to point out that its competitor doesn't have one, it's not immediately clear how AMD would market such a chip as it would theoretically compete with both dual-core and quad-core Intel processors, as well as AMD's forthcoming quad-core Phenom and its existing Athlon X2 chips.
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According to the Inquirer, the so-called Phenom X3 -- which would have three processing engines as opposed to the quad-core Phenom FX series -- could give the company some much-needed leverage against Intel, at least from a marketing perspective. While it's a relatively easy matter to disable one core, Intel wouldn't be able to effectively produce a tri-core processor at this point because of the way the company currently approaches quad-core -- slapping two dual-core dies into a single-socket CPU. AMD, on the other hand, can do tri-core due to its Direct Connect architecture, which provides a dedicated channel between the CPU cores and from each CPU out to the system memory.
While it's still unclear whether the rumored tri-core chips will simply be based quad-core chip with one core disabled, it's largely believed that the processors will at least tout the same architectural selling-points as their quad-core relatives like the shared L3 cache and HyperTransport technology.
That said, a triple-core chip wouldn't necessarily be a homerun for AMD. Other than to point out that its competitor doesn't have one, it's not immediately clear how AMD would market such a chip as it would theoretically compete with both dual-core and quad-core Intel processors, as well as AMD's forthcoming quad-core Phenom and its existing Athlon X2 chips.
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