AMD Announces 'Phenom' Chips

AMD has introduced a quad-core family of chips for desktop PCs, called 'Phenom', which is based on the "Barcelona" quad-core Opteron server chip technology that the company is planning to launch in the middle of this year.

The company said that the 'Phenom' line, which will include single-die quad-core and double quad-core segments, is both energy efficient as well as virtualization-ready.

In a statement, Bob Brewer, General Manager of Desktop Division, AMD, said that AMD has always enjoyed a great bond with the enthusiast community, and the introduction of the AMD 'Phenom' processor family will take their relationship to new heights.

Besides improved performance, the 'Phenom' line boasts of integrated DDR2 memory controller, HyperTransport technology links, and 128-bit Floating Point Units.

Ian McNaughton, AMD's Product Manager for Athlon 64 FX products, explained that adding the 'Phenom' chip to the company's line of desktop processors would allow AMD to push dual-core processing from top-of-the-shelf desktops to the entire mainstream product family. McNaughton revealed this is a key strategy at a time when users are looking for better results from running Windows Vista, doing complex media creation, and multi-tasking.

Under the Phenom family, AMD will now offer desktop chips, including 'Phenom FX' (in one or two quad-core chips), 'Phenom X4' and 'Phenom X2' (in quad-core and dual-core), 'Athlon X2', and 'Sempron'.

While the 'Phenom FX' and the 'Phenom X4' will be available in the second half of this year, the 'Phenom X2' will start shipping at the end of this year.