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Chipmaker AMD has launched two new "Bulldozer" FX processors, the penta-core 3.8GHz FX-6200 and the quad-core 4.2GHz FX-4170.
The new chips are on the power hungry side with a TDP of 125 Watts. Each is capable of ‘turbo’ boosting the clock speed if there’s limited work available on the other ‘cores’. The FX-6200 from 3.8GHz to 4.1GHz and the FX-4170, a rather more modest 4.3GHz from 4.2GHz.
Our use of quotes around AMD’s use of ‘core’ is because the Bulldozer architecture isn’t quite like traditional CPU cores with the units sharing common features in a pair within a single module.
AMD didn’t announce the pricing of the new chips but the FX-4170 will hit somewhere between £85 and £110 on the street given the prices of CPUs above and below the FX-4170.
Conversely the new FX-6200 will be somewhere between £110 and £149.
AMD is set to have another crack at the processor market with a new "Piledriver" architecture to be introduced later in the year. The Intel-rival announced that it had licensed "resonant clock mesh" technology from Cyclos Semiconductor to use in the new chips, with the goal of reducing power and increasing clock speeds.
The new cores are expected to turn up in a variety of AMD processors including the graphics onboard APUs and new FX-branched microprocessors code named "Visherain" the third quarter.
Piledriver is said to be something like 10 per cent faster than the Bulldozer core while the "resonant clock mesh" has been credited with a 10 per cent reduction in power or increase in clock rate. With any luck Piledriver will be more competitive with Intel’s Core range than Bulldozer.
