AMD isn’t in the best of places right now. Intel is reclaiming much of what AMD managed to grab during the golden K8 era and judging from what we’ve seen of Nehalem, AMD isn’t exactly heading for a better place. Fortunately, AMD is trying to keep the head up high and it’s getting ready to complete its current processor lineup with some energy efficient versions of its triple and quad core processors later this year. Phenom X4 9350e (2.0GHz), Phenom X3 8250e (1.9GHz) and 8450e (2.1GHz) should appear in two months. All specified to work in the 65W envelope.
In the fourth quarter, AMD will unleash its two first 45nm processors in the form of two new Phenom X4 models based on the Deneb core, which will be followed by Propus-based CPUs in Q1 2009. Indicated by previous roadmaps, Propus lacks the shared L3 cache. AMD hopes to get retail Deneb up to 2.8GHz, while Propus models should land at 2.6GHz at best. Both of these are AM2+ (DDR2), but should be upgraded to AM3 and DDR3 in 2009.
Beside the retail models, AMD is planning to unveil its cheap CPU targeted for ultramobiles we mentioned a few days ago. The CPU is based on a slightly stripped down version of the K8 core and is targeted for the fast growing ultramobile market. The advantages of AMD’s processor is of course that the northbridge is more or less on-die, which results in an overall lower power consumption and simpler design than CPU plus chipset.
AMD is expected to present its product before the end of the year along with a couple of products from high-profile partners, e.g. HP, with product availability in Q1 2009.
