Advanced Micro Devices plans to deliver its first graphics processor with support for Microsoft's new DirectX 11 graphics API (application programming interface) later this year, it said today at Computex in Taipei.
The new system promises to deliver more detailed and realistic images on systems that support the technology. AMD said it expects to beat competing graphics chip makers to market with the feature.
AMD has introduced a six-core version of its Opteron server chip designed for the most demanding datacentre workloads, such as databases and server consolidation using virtualisation.
Codenamed Istanbul, the six-core chip is available immediately, several months earlier than had been planned. It is expected to appear in four-socket systems from Dell, HP, IBM and Sun in the near future.
AMD says it has reached a new top speed for graphics processing.
The company said that its latest ATI graphics cards are able to reach processor speeds of up to 1ghz, a new top mark for a factory-produced air-cooled graphics card. The new Radeon HD 4890 card is said to be able to reach up to 1.6 teraflops computing speeds through the single GPU. The company plans to market the card to the high-end gaming market initially.
The VP of advanced marketing at AMD, Patrick Moorhead, has publicly called Intel's refusal to deal with issues like battery life on blogs and Twitter "offensive and derogatory to consumers".
At an impromptu panel of executives at SXSW last week, Moorhead advised the corporate world bog it up a bit and act the twit by getting active on social media. "If you're a large company, a small company or a medium company, it doesn't matter" gushed the Veep, adding, however, it was of the utmost importance to "keep it honest, have integrity and have transparancy".
AMD can't say it, but Istanbul, its six-core, 45-nanometer processor, is ready. (Officially, it's set to be launched in the second half of this year).
Istanbul is a drop-in replacement for the quad-core Shanghai, meaning that existing AMD servers can get a 50% boost in workload capacity per square foot, per BTU, per decibel, per kilowatt.
As the inventor of the x86 instruction set – Intel Corp. – remains tight-lipped over Nvidia Corp.’s plans to enter the market of x86 system-on-chip (SoC), Advanced Micro Devices, the world’s second producer of x86 microprocessors, claims that it is virtually impossible to enter the x86 chip market these days.
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) today announced it recently completed live public demonstrations of its upcoming six-core 45nm AMD Opteron™ processor, codenamed “Istanbul.” Scheduled to launch in the second half of this year, “Istanbul” is expected to be the only x86 six-core processor available for two- and four-socket systems and higher.
AMD have had a pretty good architecture going with their current Phenom II CPUs, based around a monolithic design that includes four cores on the one die.
Intel's Quad Cores in the Core 2 Quad have been essentially been two dual-core dies on the one package, giving a total of four cores split in the middle.
The shift to mobile computing emphasizes the split between two distinct markets for the processor vendors that make the brains of computers. There’s the consumer-facing devices, which include everything from smartphone to laptops, and the server side, which offers content to consumer devices through the cloud.
REMEBER WHEN WE said AMD was going to split into a fab company and design company? Word has it that it will be announced in a few hours, likely before the opening bell tomorrow.
The story is basically what we first told you about in March, Arab, likely Abu Dhabi money will finance the split. The overview is remarkably simple, there will be two companies, basically a foundry and a design house. The deal is greased by billions of dollars, the number we hear is more than one, less than ten, all from bartered SUV go juice.
