AMD's 45nm Shanghai enters production, next stops are Deneb, Istanbul

Let's not beat around the bush: AMD's oft-delayed Barcelona quad-core processor was a flop. It arrived late and buggy, an undesirable reception that helped to drive the company's $1.2 billion Q2 loss this year. AMD can't afford another flub like that and is hoping that processor's successor, Shanghai, finds more success in the server market. It's a 45nm quad-core chip with three times the cache (6MB) and HyperTransport 3, apparently equating to a 20 percent boost in speed and even thriftier power consumption. AMD is saying the chip is already under production and will be available for sale before the year is out, actually beating expectations for once. That should be shortly followed by the release of 45nm Deneb processors for desktops, then six-core Istanbul chips sometime late 2009. Meanwhile, Intel's six-core, 45nm server chips are now shipping.

[Al @ Sep 30th 2008 10:57AM]

What kind of codename is Shanghai?
Seriously...

[Dead @ Sep 30th 2008 11:01AM]

The same kind of codename that Barcelona is? The name of a city?! maybe?!

[Bufsabre @ Sep 30th 2008 11:02AM]

shanghai? barcelona? istanbul? deneb? you dont see something there? would you like an atlas?

[k2001 @ Sep 30th 2008 11:20AM]

This is proof that artificial intelligence is not going to replace human.
Terminator lies....... skynet is not going to take over the word

[Mikeo @ Sep 30th 2008 11:23AM]

AMD's K10 server cores are codenamed after cities. Their K10 consumer chips are codenamed after stars.

[kal326 @ Sep 30th 2008 12:17PM]

@Mikeo
To bad its only the server chips series named after cities, because I was really looking forward to a mobile quad core code named Bangkok.

[Technex @ Sep 30th 2008 11:11AM]

Colorful picture.

[ethana2 @ Sep 30th 2008 12:05PM]

Yeah, silicon is beautiful... It almost makes you want to like, lick it or something.
...I think it could be said that with most things where that's true, it's a bad idea..

Doesn't taste like much anyway, but maybe the old 486's have just lost their flavor at this point.

[kal326 @ Sep 30th 2008 12:10PM]

Good news for AMD, however something tells me Intel isn't all to worried about getting Shanghaied.

[joshc @ Sep 30th 2008 7:30PM]

who is stupid enough to buy a six core intel atm at it's retardly high price. you would have to be so mad you wouldn't be able to use a pc.

[loosely_coupled @ Oct 1st 2008 1:38AM]

Intel is not worried at all, given that Nehalem should be out around the same time or even before Shanghai. I'm not a fanboy of either company, and I am definitely rooting for the underdog AMD, but Nehalem is going to be a powerhouse. They are essentially taking a Core 2 quad (which is already a top performer) and removing all of the disadvantages relative to Barcelona and then improving the parts that Intel got right in the first place. I'm afraid that even if Shanghai is a notable improvement over Barcelona, it might not be enough to compete with Nehalem and will instead have to solely compete on price.

[eiki @ Sep 30th 2008 7:25PM]

can't wait to buy the Phenom 22505005000000500!!!!!

[Jon @ Nov 13th 2008 5:09AM]

Hopefully AMD will give it a better name than "i7". Seriously, Intel: tell the marketing group to lay off the crack.