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AMD Changes the Official Roadmap

Turion 64 Mobile Technology on Lancaster Core Unleashed. 90nm Opteron E4 Processors Going into Mass Production

by Anna Filatova
03/10/2005 | 07:22 PM

The last time AMD updated roadmap slides on their official company web-site dated back to November 24, 2004. At that time the cores location on the slide changed dramatically, because the company finally revealed all the launch dates for their upcoming 0.09micron processors.

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I have to say that AMD prepared very thoroughly for the first day of CeBIT 2005. The mobile Turion 64 processors, which we have already mentioned in our news many times, were officially announced today and the first notebooks based on them from Acer and Fujitsu Siemens are to arrive in the coming month. So, the official company price list now includes some info about the Turion 64 processors as well:

Turion 64 ML-37 (2.0 GHz, 1 MB cache, 35 W) -> $354;
Turion 64 ML-34 (1.8 GHz, 1 MB cache, 35 W) -> $263;
Turion 64 ML-32 (1.8 GHz, 512 KB cache, 35 W) -> $220;
Turion 64 ML-30 (1.6 GHz, 1 MB cache, 35 W) -> $184;
Turion 64 MT-34 (1.8 GHz, 1 MB cache, 25 W) -> $268;
Turion 64 MT-32 (1.8 GHz, 512 KB cache, 25 W) -> $225;
Turion 64 MT-30 (1.6 GHz, 1 MB cache, 25 W) -> $189.

If we compare the prices of different Turion 64 modifications with similar features but different power consumption rates we will see an evident rule: ”colder” 25W models are $5 cheaper than their counterparts. I have to admit that AMD announced quite an impressive product range, which is formally broader than what we currently see on the Pentium M front.

We are going to talk more about the detailed specifications and features of the new Turion 64 processors later in our news, and now I would like to draw your attention to the major changes on AMD’s roadmap as of today. For a more illustrative comparison let’s take a look at AMD’s roadmap dating back to November 24, 2004:

Here is what looks different today:

First of all, the 0.09micron Opteron processors based on E4 core stepping have finally entered mass production stage. They used to be mentioned in the documents under the codenames of Athens, Troy and Venus. The next “legalized” core is Lancaster, which is the one the freshly announced Turion 64 is actually based on. The launch dates and names for all other cores remained the same. Also note that dual-core Toledo processors are kind of isolated on AMD’s roadmap thus stressing their specific positioning, aside from Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX CPU families. According to AMD’s recent statements we know that Toledo will be used for Athlon 64 processors in the future, while Athlon 64 FX will remain a single-core solution.

This way, we can conclude that most single-core CPUs from AMD based on E core stepping have already begun. The company is shipping Opteron and Turion 64. The corresponding Athlon 64 processor versions are to come within the next few weeks.

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