AMD shows off "genuine" quad-core processor

Stan Beer
Friday, 01 December 2006 09:50

Your IT - Home IT

AMD may have been beaten to the market by Intel in the quad-core processor stakes, but it is making a brave attempt to take the shine off Intel's lead by claiming technological superiority. According to AMD, when it releases its Barcelona quad-core Opteron server chip in the second quarter of 2007, it will be the only genuine quad-core on a single die, while all Intel has is two dual cores stitched together. The question is who cares?

Reports that AMD has already demonstrated a pre-release version of the Barcelona to analysts and the news the previously flagged mid-2007 release date is now sometime in the second quarter appears to indicate that AMD has fast tracked the project. The chip maker wants to bring a quad-core to the market as quickly as possible.

While AMD has up until recently held a technological edge over Intel and taken market share in the past two years from its larger rival, Intel has hit back hard in the past six months with the release of its dual-core Core 2 Duo and Xeon 5100 ranges and quad-core Core 2 Extreme and Xeon 5300 processors. The Intel processors have been well received and the Core 2 Duo in particular has been a big seller.

Although Intel was first, both chip makers have now moved to the 65nm manufacturing process but AMD is being forced to cool its heels and go into damage control while Intel has marched relentlessly forward with a string of high performance products.

This had led AMD through technical specialists, such as Michael Apthorpe, AMD's technical manager, Australia and New Zealand, to extol the virtues of a genuine quad-core processor.

"We certainly do believe we will be the first with a quad-core which is a true quad-core processor," Apthorpe said in June. "Unlike our competitor, it won’t be two two dual-cores stitched together like their quad-core will probably be. We will release to the market a true quad-core. That is one physical die with four physical processors with four separate caches all interconnected and operating as a quad-core processor. The advantages is performance and power consumption from our approach are obvious.”

Intel, however, has made it clear, from CEO Paul Ottelini down, that it does not believe the market cares two hoots what's under the hood or how a chip is constructed. The only thing that matters is performance.

If the success of the Core 2 Duo is anything to go by, Otellini and Intel seem to have a point. The true test for Barcelona will be the independent benchmarks.