If your interest in processor speeds doesn't extend much beyond "is it fast?" then these juicy tidbits likely aren't for you. That said, AMD is certainly getting excited about its upcoming Barcelona successor: the 45nm Shanghai. The main points of interest out of the gate are HyperTransport 3.0, which was nixed late in the game on Barcelona, and six cores, which are meant to pit the chip up against Intel's upcoming six-core Dunnington chip. Where things get really exciting is a few months after Shanghai's late 2008 debut, when AMD plans do release a twin-die version, with 12 cores of happiness connected by HyperTransport 3.0. What does all that mean? Beats us, but we hope it's fast.

Some seven months after AMD first tooted its horn about creating the "world's most advanced x86 CPU," the quad-core Opteron is finally shipping. Effective today, consumers eager to wrap their brains around all that purported power can find the chips residing in a variety of HP machines (read: servers) as well as in systems from other "distributors, system integrators and specialized OEMs." Unfortunately, little is said about the widespread availability of the CPU beyond that, but at least it's getting out the door in one way or another, right?

[Via CNET]

Read - Opteron heads to select partners
Read - Opteron now available in OEM platforms

Oh AMD, you just can't keep it together, can you? Advanced Micro Devices, a company known for its share of "issues," has once again delayed its much-hyped, energy efficient Barcelona CPU. Apparently, a technical irregularity has caused the company to push back the release date for widespread availability of the chip until sometime early next year. The glitch, which causes the chip to fail, is just another line of setbacks on the product's path to release (originally set for mid-2007). John Taylor, a company spokesman, says, "We're continuing to ship it but only to specific customers." The company is offering a workaround for the chips until the problems are solved, though users will see an impact on performance. In other heart-wrenching (though seemingly unrelated) AMD news, the chipmaker has decided to re-up its older K8 architecture, refocusing on "Brisbane"-based chips, and even adding a few new models to the line. Over the next two quarters, the company will release 11 new 65nm chips based on the older format, while just three new entries will be made in the "Phenom" -- or K10 -- line. Look, Hector, everyone is pulling for you (except maybe Intel) -- just get it together, man!

[Thanks, Gary J]

Read - A.M.D. Delays Energy-Efficient Chip Again
Read - AMD Resurrects K8 Architecture for 2008 Roadmap

AMD had itself a busy day today: not only did the European Commission file antitrust charges against Intel for interfering with AMD's business in Europe, the Sunnyvale company released an updated product roadmap at its annual analyst conference. With the quad-core Barcelona processor on track for an August launch, the company announced its next-gen mobile platform, "Puma," which will feature hybrid graphics support. Looking even farther ahead, AMD also announced some chips we won't see for a while yet: the all-new workstation- and server-oriented "Bulldozer" chip and mobile device "Bobcat" chip are scheduled to arrive sometime in 2010, and represent entirely new chip designs for the company. The hits didn't stop there, however: AMD's also announced its first Fusion integrated CPU / GPU chip, the "Falcon," which will use the Bulldozer core -- no word on what happened to Hawk or when we'll see this ship. Finally, the company answered speculation that it's looking to get out of the manufacturing game by saying that it's aiming for the "right balance" between in-house and outside fabrication, but that it's committed to its current existing mix through 2009. All in all, it looks like AMD has got some pretty ambitious plans for the future -- but will it be enough to hold off scrappy upstart Hynix? Tons more info, including all the slides, at the read link.

[Thanks, Ryan]

Those eager to lay down for the "industry's first" native x86 quad-core processor have but a few months left to wait, as AMD just announced that its quad-core Opteron's would begin shipping in August. Codenamed Barcelona, these CPUs will be launching in both "standard and low power versions," hit frequencies of up to 2GHz, and should provide performance increases of up to "70-percent" over existing Opterons in select applications. Additionally, those who can hold off a bit can look forward to even speedier chips in Q4 of this year, and an elusive "Special Edition" version should also be just around the bend. Per usual, no hints on what kind of premium you'll pay for this wee piece of silicon come August, but AMD did note that the processors wouldn't hit mainstream systems until September.

What do you do when you're always playing catch-up to Intel, watching your workstation market share slip, and piling up something like $2 billion in debt? Well if you're AMD, you seriously consider dropping your fabrication business. According to reports, the company is currently investigating its options for outsourcing more (or all) of its manufacturing to third-party firms in deals similar to the ones it has with Chartered Semiconductor and Taiwan Semiconductor. There are drawbacks, of course, including the possibility of longer development times due to the separation of design and manufacturing (the last thing AMD wants, considering recent Barcelona delay rumors). Regardless of what its final decision will be, it's clear that the news has already hurt the struggling chipmaker in the short-term by causing several market analysts to downgrade the company's stock.

[Via Techmeme]

When you think quad-core CPU, current draw may not be the first concern that comes to your mind -- unless you administer a few dozen or hundred such boxes, in which case electricity, airflow, and air conditioning are no longer mere minor concerns. Thankfully for quad-core AMD hopefuls, their new Barcelona chip will feature an enhanced PowerNow setup that allows each of the chips four cores to operate at four varying clock speeds, independent of one another and depending on load. Despite adding another couple cores to the die, AMD claims this will help cut power by another 10 watts per chip (which definitely adds up in aggregate); we do sincerely hope they're right. We'll find out more when the Barcelona makes yet another splash, this time at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC).

With Intel giving its shareholders some awfully great news to savor over the holidays, AMD had to hit back with some news of its own, but you'll definitely get a different vibe from reading ExtremeTech's take on the firm's recently showcased Barcelona than from the horse's own mouth. While AMD parades its 65nm chip as "the world's first native quad-core x86 server processor," and boasts about its "significant advancements in performance per watt capabilities," we've reason to wonder if things aren't a bit sugarcoated. While the wafer was demonstrated as utilizing "all 16 cores" and being a seamless upgrade from "dual-core to quad-core", hard facts (read: the much anticipated benchmarks) were curiously absent. Aside from injecting onlookers with more of the same technical minutiae we've seen over the past few months, AMD didn't exactly flesh out a lot of new details to chew on, but ExtremeTech's reference system "was the loudest they'd ever had in their office," and sucked down nearly 600 watts of power with just two HDDs and a single graphics card. So while we're firmly withholding judgment until its officially released, we'd say AMD still has a bit of tweaking to do before the competition rolls in.

UPDATE: Looks like we mistook the quad-core Opteron and the Quad FX (announced on the same day, nonetheless) chips as one in the same, when (thankfully) they're not, but those eying the recently-released FX-based desktops may want to think about how much noise they're willing to put up with before throwing down on a new machine.

Read - AMD Press Release
Read - ExtremeTech's Hands-on Testing

If you're not super excited by technical chip jargon like "advanced branch prediction" and "sideband stack optimizer," you might want to skip this one over, but for you chipheads out there, AMD has just unveiled the nitty gritty specs behind their forthcoming Barcelona quad-core processors. Built on a 65nm SOI process, the new chips will take the place of AMD's Opteron line, and will power workstations and servers sometime mid-2007 before the technology trickles down to consumer versions of the chips. AMD couldn't help but take a little pot-shot at Intel for their quad-core systems, which they claim are just two dual-core CPUs packed together, but we're pretty sure most consumers are going to be more concerned with performance, price and performance per watt than semantics. AMD hasn't provided any benchmarks yet, but we'll all be watching closely, since they're currently playing catchup to Intel on most of those fronts.

[Via Slashdot]