AMD Demos Phenom FX Chips at 3.0GHz

by Anton Shilov
07/26/2007 | 02:56 PM

Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday demonstrated its highly-anticipated enthusiast-class quad-core AMD Phenom processor that functioned at a clock-speed that has been widely considered as unachievable for initial microprocessors based on the company’s new-generation micro-architecture.

At its Technology Analyst Day, the world’s No. 2 maker of x86 central processing units demonstrated its quad-core AMD Phenom FX processor running at 3.0GHz with air-cooling. The system functioned without issues, however, AMD decided not to share benchmark results of the processor, which is not projected to hit the market at least a quarter from now.

The system that ran quad-core AMD Phenom FX 3.0GHz chip was based on a new RD790 PCI Express 2.0 core-logic from AMD and also featured three ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT graphics cards in CrossFire mode. AMD demonstrated Call of Juarez DirectX 10 game demo on the system, though, did not allow the attendees to see the benchmark score. Everything, what is known is that at unknown settings the demo ran smoothly, based on visual impression.

Earlier Advanced Micro Devices announced that it would ship its first quad-core AMD Opteron processors code-named Barcelona with “standard” and lowered power consumption in August with product availability in September. However, those chips will only operate at clock-speeds of 2.0GHz and below.

Sources close to AMD did not expect the company to release quad-core chips at frequencies of more than 2.60GHz this year. However, Rick Bergman, who is senior vice president and general manager of graphics product group, said that all the demonstrated high-end products will be available before year end.

“You’ll see those products available for delivery this year,” Mr. Bergman said, emphasizing that the system used off-the-shelf cooling solutions, which means that the machine is not an ultra-overclocked piece of hardware, but something that resembles a PC ready for shipment.