AMD Cancels Retail Phenom II X4 960T Thuban Quad Core Processors

[onethreehill]

AMD sent out an e-mail today letting the press know that we shouldn't expect to see any retail Phenom II X4 960T Thuban quad-core processors being sold individually on the retail market. These were very interested parts as the engineering samples that were available could be unlocked to become six-core processors. If we had to guess these processors will be available only in OEM systems on motherboards that don't have core unlocking technology in the BIOS. This is a big let down as it could have easily been the best price versus performance processor on the market for AMD. I wonder what AMD will be doing with all the fall out from the Thuban six-core processors now or if the OEM market will scoop them all up?

http://www.legitreviews.com/news/8025/

[lkiller123]

What a way to ruin the party for us.

[zanzabar]

just becouse its not going retail dosnt mean that u cannot buy one, if they are sold to places like dell or HP they also sell cpus (not at a vary good price normally but they do sell them) and i would also bet that down the road amd will have a 9xxt part out but they need to sell the x6 parts 1st to make the larger margins that way they can put more to r&d

[NKrader]

just buy a 200$ dell + that processor in it? aqwire new cruncher.

win

[Serpentarius]

suddenly 960T became a limited edition

[zanzabar]

just buy a 200$ dell + that processor in it? aqwire new cruncher.

win

the 1055 is $200 (or 205 with the new product mark up)

[FreeRadical]

sad news indeed.
though methinks this is just a ploy and they are just gonna do a delayed launch a quarter or two before Bulldozer.

[~CS~]

I can see where they are coming from , these should clock better then the native quads and sell better while costing more to make and will have thinner profit margins.But this just sucks....

[64NOMIS]

A few reasons not to despair

1. The 1055T is about $200, leaving little from between it and Deneb quads
2. The 955 Black at about $160 & 965 Black at about $180 are proven overclockers with unlocked multipliers
3. It would be more interesting to play with a low TDP X6 Thuban
4. All of these are available now
5. If you really are on a budget Deneb is ready...

[flippin_waffles]

Yeah, really there is no room to complain. There is already a 6 core for $200 and cheaper ones on the way. This move is perfectly reasonable IMO. People can't expect them to give processors away can they? Yields must be darn good and there's no need to chop working chips into ones that aren't, just to be sold cheaper.

[SKYMTL]

Or they are getting such good yields at six cores that making a quad core which can be "unlocked" becomes rather pointless...

[Manicdan]

so it seems that AMD really hates the idea of unlockable cores? first they removed it from ACC, but then the board manufatures put it back in, and so they just take the cpu away from us.

does anything think this can be a bad thing for AMD cpus going forward? like a duel core Llano will not be able to unlock into a quad?

[ajaidev]

i think its more to do with the yeild they are getting in the 45nm process than they not likeing the idea of unlockable cpus because thats what made 550 so great and popular it may do the same for the 960T

[=SOC= Admiral]

AMDs yields on these chips should be absurd and by disabling 2 cores that can just be enabled for full utilization is just loosing money they need for Bulldozer and get farther from going into dept again. It just is not profitable and just good business.

[Hornet331]

Yield is only on factor, imho this shows, that there is a high enough demand for the hexacore phenoms.

[Manicdan]

ok so no one here believes that Llano duels will have any problems going to quads?

[eva2000]

such a shame, it's been ages since i touched AM3 side, and 960T was looking awfully tempting to return to AM3 for some memory playtime

[blindbox]

They're not running a charity, guys. Yields must be very good that they threw 960T off. Come on, look at the clocks everyone is getting.

Price difference is only 20 bucks for a thuban and a Phenom II x4 965 BE as 64NOMIS mentioned. Why on earth would you go for 960T instead?

[Mechromancer]

Boo hoo, looks like we can only get OMFGWTFPWNXOR Hex-cores and C3 Denebs for really cheap now. I'm so mad at AMD right now.

/Sarcasm

[RaV[666]]

From what i read before in many places, the 960T was going to be available from Q3, so there wasnt any planned 960T availability now either way, besides, you can get tray/oem chips if you want to, mine 910 as a example.

[crazydiamond]

1035t is the chip to get for people who want cheap 6 cores, Praz already showed it gets 4ghz stable just as easy as the rest if the mobo can take htt high enough.. for less than $200 i dont know how anyone couldnt be happy

[PatRaceTin]

i am waiting 960T for 6 months and it end today!!!!

[ZhaoYun]

Slightly disappointing but I suppose it doesn't make a difference.

[TurboDiv]

OMG ! I wanted to get that thing and now AMD won't sell it ? Well this is BS. 1090T is basically 200$ extra for 200mhz gain compared to C3 X4 right now (at best) - nothing special in my eyes. The move from C3 at around 4Ghz to 1090T or 1055T is just not worth it at those prices b/c you only use the extra cores in synthetic software...

[Florinmocanu]

Get 1035T then. Good OC and cheaper than 1055T and 1090T. And probably will sell for less than what a 960T would have sold.