Phenom II

If you think that there are too many CPUs today, from both AMD and Intel, with features and performance too close to each other to make much difference, you are not alone.
Back in the old days, we used to have distinct grades of CPU lines, and they were clearly defined by speed and performance changes [...]

Power, that is. Without much fanfare, AMD has started delivering more efficient chips, with the AM3 socket configuration. The most conspicuous offering is the Phenom II 945 X4, which is spec’ed identically to the ‘other’ Phenom II  945 X4, except that this new model has a power usage of only 95 watts at full bore, [...]

Almost anyone who builds computers has a healthy respect, if not love, for the name Asus. For most, it goes back to the motherboards it released that would do things that Intel did not want done, and did it well. I think of the dual P III motherboard that, by clever trickery, allowed users to [...]

Or perhaps I should say, a bin. After all, that is what it is called when processors are graded, binning. Now, the yields are up enough that AMD can effectively bin enough of the Phenom II X4s to identify a new processor grade – the 965 Black Edition, at 3.4 GHz.
Many people will wonder why [...]

Just at the time when Average Joe has the naming schema of Intel processors licked, Intel decides that new processors need radically different names, or that current processor levels aren’t differentiated well enough.
Those who have been around, and interested, long enough remember the first time names came around, with the Pentium, instead of simply [...]

After visiting the usual hangouts, none had the news I found at Hardware Central . It certainly pays to keep looking, because no one place has it all.
AMD has just released the news of, and demonstrated Istanbul, the six-core processor that AMD hopes to help regain server market share lost to Intel, and gain back [...]