AMD Releases Phenom-based PC Platform

AMD unveiled on Monday its new quad-core desktop processor along with a chipset and platform based on it. The platform, called Spider, targets gaming PC designers by including components that foster high bandwith and high-definition graphics. Included are AMD's 65-nm Phenom quad-core processor, its 7-Series chipsets, and ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series graphics processors. AMD released its Phenom processor a week after Intel released its Penryn family of 45-nm chips. Phenom runs at up to 2.3 GHz and has up to 14.4 GB/second of high bandwith I/O. Its 7-Series chipset links to the processor via a HyperTransport 3.0 interface, delivering up to 16 Gbytes/second on the Phenom chips. It also runs 42 PCI Express lanes, supporting up to four graphics processors. The chipsets use ATI CrossFireX technology, which supports three or four ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series graphics processors. These high-definition graphics processors hold core data rates from 670 to 775 MHz and 256-bit memory interfaces running from 1.6 to 2.25 GHz. The 2.3 GHz and 2.2 GHz Phenom processors are available for $283 and $251 respectively in 1,000-unit pricing. ATI Radeon HD 3850 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory begins at $179 while Radeon HD 3870 with 512MB GDDR4 memory starts at $219.