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Chipmaker AMD reintroduced the firm’s FX-brand of high end PC processors at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
The AMD FX brand harks from an era when the firm’s processors were well regarded among gamers at a time when the firm’s processors competed rather better with Intel than they have in recent times.
The brand was last seen in 2006, attached to the last of the dual-core processors for AMD’s Socket 939 platform, the AMD Athlon 64 FX-60. The multiplier unlocked enthusiast processor came in at a bank-breaking $1031.
The FX brand has been on hiatus during the intervening years which has seen the Intel competitor struggle to table a high-end enthusiast CPU that would seriously challenge Intel.
Choosing the E3 show as a launch platform, AMD is hoping to recapture some of the past glories by reviving the FX brand as it releases the new Bulldozer achitecture processors which the firm claims is competitive with the best Intel has to offer.
The first of the chips to arrive will be the AMD Bulldozer architecture "Zambezi" chip including an 8-core ‘AMD Vision Black FX’ and the ‘Vision Ultimate FX’.
"AMD’s FX brand will enable an over-the-top experience for PC enthusiasts," said AMD marketing chief Leslie ‘I write my own blogs honest’ Sobon.
In May leaked details of the top-of-the-range FX-8150P Black Edition appeared on the Chinese-language ZOL forums, suggesting an astonishing 4.2GHz clockspeed with Turbo Boost up to 4.7GHz.
If those details are correct, the clock speed is much higher than any other processor yet available and combined with a CPU with 8 cores, 8MB of L3 Cache and with a price somewhere between $350 and $400, AMD may well have a gaming processor worthy of the FX moniker.
AMD also announced the Scorpius platform which consists of the multiplier-unlocked FX-series processors on a 900-series chipset motherboard with Radeon HD 6000 series graphics cards. Such a configuration is likely to prove popular among high-end boutique system builders.
In addition to the new hardware announcements, AMD unveiling additional game publisher support for the firm’s "Gaming Evolved" campaign, announcing that the keenly anticipated Deux Ex: Human Revolution will ship with native HD3D support.
The AMD FX processors are due to arrive in the third quarter.
