AMD: Barcelona "introduction" at end of Q2, in market Q3

[EternityZX9]

CRN: What will be the performance of Barcelona vs. Intel's quad-core

RICHARD: It's in the speculation stage. [But] we know that we expect performance gains in the 40 percent to 70 percent range, and we know the scalability of our architecture is better than the competition.

I'm sorry, but am I reading this wrong? From what it says from the OP it looks to me like the 40-70% will be over Kentsfield since isn't that "Intel's Quad-Core"?

[oldblue]

I'm sorry, but am I reading this wrong? From what it says from the OP it looks to me like the 40-70% will be over Kentsfield since isn't that "Intel's Quad-Core"?

When they say "performance gains", I don't think they mean "performance advantage." I think they mean that this is the amount by which their performance will improve. This is consistent with the numbers they put up at the Virtual IT Experience. Skip ahead to 2:30 to 2:40. That's where the 40% and 70% probably come from.

Actually, Henry Richard did refer to the new architecture as 'K8L' in his interview with digitimes.com....
http://www.digitimes.com/bits_chips/a20060314PR200.html

That's true, but it's only after the Digitimes interviewer said, "There have been reports, notably on The Inquirer website, that AMD will in fact return fire with its own new core in 2007, the K8L." I believe Richard was just repeating the terminology that the reporter was familiar with.

More recently, in the Virtual IT experience there was a chat session in which an AMD representative said, "K8L is not a real product - this was something that was created as a guess by the Inquirer." And then there is this. AMD refers to the first quad core processor as "Barcelona," but I still don't know what to call the new family of processors.

[xenolith]

Let me get this straight. Isn't the "Barcelona" version of the K8L/K10 a socket F+ Opteron? And the "Agena" (quad-core) and "Kuma" (dual-core) are desktop versions of K8L/K10, right? Isn't "Agena" a socket F+ too?

If so, will mobo makers be releasing socket F+ mobos in Q3 for the destop?

[oldblue]

Let me get this straight. Isn't the "Barcelona" version of the K8L/K10 a socket F+ Opteron?

Barcelona is an Opteron, rumored to be socked F+, and definitely compatible with socket F. Here's the official server roadmap.

And the "Agena" (quad-core) and "Kuma" (dual-core) are desktop versions of K8L/K10, right? Isn't "Agena" a socket F+ too?

To my knowledge, AMD has revealed very little about the desktop K8L generation. Even the code names are just rumor at this point.

With that said, metro.cl recently dropped this. (Thanks metro!) So according to rumor we would have

Agena FX: Socket F+
Agena: AM2+.

I think it would be similar to how we currently have

FX-7x: Socket F
X2: AM2

[xenolith]

Thanks oldblue. Agena FX w/Socket F+ and Agena w/AM2+ makes sense to me now.

[vengance_01]

Damn I wish AMD would leak some benchies or start sending out ES samples soon. I just hope this Quad Core chip is as good as AMD says it will be. I remember back in the day when everyone was waiing for the first A64 benchmarks and look how well K8 turned out.