AMD breaks out the cigars for its very first 65nm chips
As evidenced by a certain recent trouncing, that 65nm stuff is the real deal. Now AMD has joined the party, with a nice little collection of Athlon 64 X2 dual-core desktop processors. The X2 4000+, 4400+, 4800+ and 5000+ are all available now, and priced from $169 to $301 -- the same as those 90nm forebears which the new chips are replacing. Of course, it'd kill AMD to hand out an actual GHZ number, so we're in the dark as far as that's concerned. What we do know is that AMD is boasting its lineup consumes half the power of that of Intel's Core 2 Duo chips, which seems quite the claim, but we're no watt experts. Apparently when pushed to full strength, power and heat exceeds that of Intel's chips, but when they aren't busy, the chips idle at 3.8 watts, compared to the 14.3 watts of Core 2 Duo. An actual test of real-world power consumption is a bit hard to do, and AMD's Jack Huynh says "We don't want to get caught in the processor technology game." Which he ironically follows with "We have superior power management features than our competition." Which is it going to be, Jack? Luckily, benchmark wizards will sort all of this out in a few weeks, and until then you can take solace in the fact that these are some great processors at a great price. Notebook chips should follow in the first half of 2007, and AMD is hoping to be fully caught up with Intel in 18 months at the next milestone: 45nm.
[Via ExtremeTech; thanks Ivana]
