CPUs
Qualcomm this morning is taking the wraps off of a new smartphone SoC for the mid-range market, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3. The second of Qualcomm’s down-market ‘S’ tier Snapdragon 7 parts, the 7s series is functionally the entry-level tier for the Snapdragon 7 family – and really, most Qualcomm-powered handsets in North America. With three tiers of Snapdragon 7 chips, the 7s can easily be lost in the noise that comes with more powerful chips. But the latest iteration of the 7s is a bit more interesting than usual, as rather than reusing an existing die, Qualcomm has seemingly minted a whole new die for this part. As a result, the company has upgraded the 7s family to use Arm’s current Armv9 CPU cores...
How Much Does it Cost to Build a P55 Motherboard?
Recent discussions of P55 motherboard pricing inspired us to do some digging and figure out exactly how much it costs to build a motherboard. While we'll see ~$100...
55 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/21/2009Phenom II X4 965: A Look at CPU/MB Bundle Pricing
AMD promised attractive bundle deals for the new Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition from North American vendors. We took a quick look at the current state of...
41 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/13/2009AMD's Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
It's literally the fastest chip AMD has ever shipped. At 3.4GHz this is the closest you're going to get to a Core i7 performance without going Nehalem. ...
54 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/13/2009Globalfoundries Starts on 22nm Fab & Announces First non-AMD Customer
What used to be AMD's manufacturing arm is now officially known as Globalfoundries. The new company has started work on its first 22nm fab, due to start production...
51 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 7/29/2009Intel Quietly Announces Core i5 and Core i3 Branding
Intel quietly announced the Core i5 and i3 branding for future Nehalem CPUs. I hope to add some additional light to the announcement.
56 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/17/2009Intel’s Core i7-975 & 950: Preparing for Lynnfield
The world's fastest processor gets faster. The new Core i7-975 runs at 3.33GHz but will hit 3.60GHz when only one core is active. The end result is...
45 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/3/2009The Athlon II X2 & Phenom II X2: 45nm Dual-Core from AMD
After months of begging, we finally have 45nm dual-core from AMD. And these new parts perform. Competition is alive and well in the lower price points.
57 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/2/2009The Lynnfield Preview: Rumblings of Revenge
If executed properly, Lynnfield may be *the* chip to get in 2009. We've got the benchmarks and data to answer why.
96 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/29/2009Intel Unveils Next-Generation Atom Details
The next netbook/nettop Atom platform is closer than you think. It's called Pine Trail and it brings both the memory controller and graphics core on-die. Expect lower...
27 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/19/2009The Core 2 Quad Q8400: Intel's $183 Phenom II 940 Competitor
AMD and Intel have quietly been fighting a quad-core price war. AMD started by introducing a very competitive Phenom II X4 940 priced similarly to Intel's Core 2...
60 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/7/2009AMD Athlon X2 7850 vs. Intel Pentium E5300: Choosing the Best $70 CPU
Here's a price point we don't usually talk about: $70. And here's another interesting fact. At $70 you can buy a CPU faster than a 3.73GHz dual-core...
56 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 4/28/2009AMD's Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
AMD continues to build its competitiveness with an even faster Phenom II. The 955 is AMD's answer to Intel's Core 2 Quad Q9550.
66 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 4/23/2009Intel Announces Intent to Manufacture Atom SoCs at TSMC
What could have been a universe imploding sort of announcement amounted to something that just made sense: Intel will be making Atom SoCs at TSMC in addition to at...
10 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/2/2009Intel's 32nm Update: The Follow-on to Core i7 and More
And you thought Core i7 was fast, how about a 6-core, 32nm version due out early next year? It's not all high performance though, Intel will be delivering...
64 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/11/2009The Phenom II X4 810 & X3 720: AMD Gets DDR3 But Doesn't Need It
The first Socket-AM3 Phenom II parts are now here with full DDR2 and DDR3 support. It turns out that DDR3 isn't really necessary today, but with five new...
77 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/9/2009Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550S: A New 65W Quad-Core
Intel joins the 65W quad-core bandwagon with its new S-series of chips. Now officially the most expensive Penryn based LGA-775 CPU you can buy we run the Q9550S...
62 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/27/2009Overclocking Core i7: A Tale of Two Retail Processors…
We provide some insight into our i7 overclocking experiences and realize a good IMC is your best friend.
37 by Rajinder Gill on 1/22/2009AMD Phenom II X4 940 & 920: A True Return to Competition
Have you been waiting for AMD's return to competition? The Phenom II does just that. It's still not the Return of the Jedi, but on its third...
93 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/8/2009Nehalem Part 3: The Cache Debate, LGA-1156 and the 32nm Future
Want to understand why Intel went with such a small L2 cache on Nehalem? We sat down with Nehalem's chief architect and got a much better understanding of...
33 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/19/2008AMD Talks Phenom II, Roadmaps and More at Fall 2008 Financial Analyst Day
The 45nm Phenom is called the Phenom II, 8 and 12-core server parts are coming in 2011 and the first CPU/GPU fusion parts will also appear around then -...
42 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/13/2008