August 26, 2005

Tom's Hardware has published complete coverage of the Fall 2005 Intel Developer Forum (IDF). Topics covered include the new virtualization technology (VT), new dual-core CPUs, energy efficient CPUs with five times better performance per watt of energy usage, WiMAX wireless networking chips, the VIIV digital media architecture, SATA II, the Intel partnership with Skype, and much more.

June 27, 2005

AnandTech has published a review of AMD's new Athlon 64 FX-57 processor. Clocked at 2.8 GHz, it is the fastest single-core CPU available in the PC marketplace. See how it performs in a number of system, synthetic, rendering, multimedia, and gaming benchmarks.

June 19, 2005

GDHardware.com has published a review of the yet unreleased AMD Athlon FX-57 processor. The Athlon FX-57 is targeted at the ultra-gamer, and operates at 2.8 GHz using a 90nm "San Diego" core. The FX-57 is currently the fastest single core processor available, easily beating all dual-core chips on single threaded performance tests. The review runs the new chip through a number of system, synthetic, and gaming benchmarks, including Cinebench, ScienceMark, Sysmark 2004, PCMark 2004, 3DMark 2003, Call of Duty, Unreal Tournament 2004, Doom 3, and DivX Compression.

June 13, 2005

Intel has started shipping seven new Pentium 4 processors. They include the 521, 531, 541, 551, 561, and 571 processors using 64-bit EM64T technology and 1 MB of L2 cache, as well as the new 3.8 GHz 670 processor, with 64-bit EM64T technology, 2 MB of L2 cache, and enhanced SpeedStep power-conservation features.

June 10, 2005

Executives from AMD today announced that they will start shipping quad-core Opteron processors early in 2007. Other planned features include per-core power management, improvements to the HyperTransport specification, secure execution, virtualization, DDR-2 and DDR-3 memory support, new multimedia-specific instructions, enhanced floating-point performance, and dedicated coprocessors.

June 4, 2005

According to a CNET report, Apple Computer will announce on Monday that it is planning to move away from using PowerPC processors to using Intel and/or AMD processors in future computers. According to sources, Apple will first move lower-end computers to Intel chips in 2006, and then move their higher-end models to the new chip in 2007. ArsTechnica provides additional commentary.

June 3, 2005

Analysts are predicting that Apple will soon announce a Mac based on a dual-core Power PC 970 processor, known as the PowerPC 970MP. Some are saying that this announcement will be made at the WWDC conference next week, as competitive pressure from Intel and AMD dual-core offerings continues to increase.

May 26, 2005

Intel today released two new processors, the Pentium D 820 and the Pentium 4 670. The Pentium D 820 is a dual-core Pentium 4 running at 2.8 GHz. The major difference between the Pentium D dual-core processors and the Pentium Extreme Edition dual-core processors is that the Pentium D chips do not support HyperThreading. The other chip introduced today, the Pentium 4 670 is the new top of the line Pentium 4, now running at 3.8 GHz. The Pentium 4 670 does support HyperThreading, but contains only a single core. A number of sites have published reviews of these two chips along with variety of synthetic, system, graphics, office, media encoding, and gaming benchmarks.

May 14, 2005

Tom's Hardware has published a comparison and review of 10 second-generation Athlon 64 motherboards. These include the Abit Fatal1ty AN8, the Abit AX8, the Albatron K8X890 Pro II, the Chaintech VNF4 Ultra, the DFI LANParty UT NF4 Ultra-D, the Epox 9NPA+ Ultra, the Jetway A483GAS, the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Edition, the Winfast NF4UK8AA, and the WinFast NF4K8MC. Many of these include new features such as Serial ATA II at 300 MB/s with Native Command Queuing (NCQ), Gigabit Ethernet with hardware firewall functionality, support for RAID 0, 1, and 0+1, and Athlon 64 X2 dual core compatibility.

May 9, 2005

Several sites have just published reviews of AMD's new dual-core desktop processors, the Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and the Athlon 64 X2 4800+. See how these chips stack up against Intel's best in a variety of synthetic, system, graphics, office, media encoding, and gaming benchmarks.

April 26, 2005

CNET and CRN have published interviews with Hector Ruiz, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices. Some of the topics discussed include 64-bit computing, AMD's future plans, why Dell doesn't use AMD chips, dual-core and quad-core plans, and the possibility of the $100 PC.

April 21, 2005

Today AMD released three dual-core Opteron processors for the server market. Three more dual-core Opteron and four dual-core Athlon models are expected within the next two months. Today's chips are the Opteron 865, the Opteron 870, and the Opteron 875, running at 1.8 GHz, 2.0 GHz and 2.2 GHz respectively. The upcoming processors are the Opteron 265, the Opteron 270, the Opteron 275, the Athlon 64 X2 4200+, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+, the Athlon 64 X2 4600+, and the Athlon 64 X2 4800+. In related news, several hardware review sites have just published reviews of some of the new chips along with various gaming, system, and multimedia benchmarks.

April 16, 2005

On Monday Dell, Alienware and others will start shipping PCs with Intel's dual-core Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840 processor. The product from Dell is called the Dimension XPS Gen5 and contains a dual-core 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840.

April 11, 2005

According to Tom's Hardware, Intel has quietly started briefing manufacturers on the next generation dual-core Pentium D, previously codenamed "Presler". The CPU is manufactured using a 65 nanometer process, runs at up to 3.4 GHz, and contains 4 MB of L2 cache. Systems based on the chip are expected to start showing up in the marketplace in the next few months. Additional details are provided about other products, including the "Averill", the "Yonah", and the "Broadwater" chipset.

April 8, 2005

News sources are reporting that AMD will launch its dual-core Opteron chips at an event on April 21st in New York City. The new Opteron 265, Opteron 275, Opteron 865, and Opteron 875 chips are designed to fit into existing single-core Opteron server designs. According to an article at The Register, server makers HP, Sun, and IBM are expected to announce dual-core Opteron servers on that day.

April 6, 2005

AMD has started to use a new CPU core for its Athlon 64 chips, called Venice (E3 Stepping). Among the advantages are full SSE3 instruction support, lower operating temperatures, enhanced memory controller, better performance, and significantly higher clock frequency potential. Xbit Labs and PC Perspective have posted very informative reviews.

April 5, 2005

Velocity Micro has announced its DCX line of personal computers, based on the Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840 processor. The dual-core CPU features 64-bit processing and HyperThreading. Velocity has announced three computer models: the Raptor DCX (aimed at gamers), the ProMagix DCX (aimed at media professionals), and the ProMagix W140 DCX (aimed at designers and engineers). Each model is available in four processor speeds: 3.2 GHz, 3.6 GHz, 3.8 GHz, and 4.0 GHz.

April 4, 2005

A number of hardware review sites recently tested the 3.2 GHz dual-core Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition model 840 on a Intel 955X chipset motherboard. The new CPU features Intel's EM64T 64-bit technology, HyperThreading, 1MB of L2 cache in each core, 800 MHz front-side bus, advanced power management with dynamic voltage identification and processor halt during idle, and a sophisticated on-chip thermal monitor. Read the articles to see how this chip performs on a number of system, content creation, synthetic, gaming, and multitasking benchmarks.

April 2, 2005

The Inquirer is reporting that a number of server manufacturers may be announcing dual-core Opteron machines as early as this month.

March 31, 2005

Tom's Hardware takes a very detailed look at the Intel vs. AMD dual-core CPU arms race. This two part article takes a look at both companies' upcoming multi-core CPU products, the value of hyperthreading, the heat dissipation problem, and more. In related news, AnandTech interviews the top tech guy from AMD to get even more details about their CPU plans.