Computex 2007: AMD's Barcelona and Other Products
by Gary Key on June 11, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Hitachi
Hitachi was showcasing several new CinemaStar drives with capacities up to 1TB in the 7k1000 family but we were most interested in their new GGC-H20N optical drive that features DVD/CD writing and Blu-ray, HD-DVD, DVD, and CD read capabilities in a native SATA interface. While it lacks the ability to write to either the Blu-ray or HD-DVD standards, the drive would make for a very good playback device in an HTPC.
Super Talent
Super Talent was displaying several new USB flash drives but one stood out from the rest. Their new Exelerator series is a high speed USB flash drive that comes in capacities up to 4GB, is Windows Vista ReadyBoost approved, and attaches directly to the USB header port on your motherboard thus freeing an additional USB port on the back panel.
AMD
While it wasn't Barcelona, AMD had several product demonstrations with Call of Juarez being shown on several R600 CrossFire Systems in full DX10 glory. Also making an appearance was Team Fortress 2 on several notebooks featuring the ATI HD 2600XT graphics solutions.
Oh yeah, after scouring several computer shops in the greater Taipei area we happened to find a pair of Barcelona chips available. Okay, maybe we broke into an engineering lab and ran off in the middle of the night with them but hey, nobody caught us. (Ed: and you thought all that time playing Ghost Recon was useless....) Once we get proper motherboard/BIOS support, we'll be ready to actually discuss performance.
Hitachi was showcasing several new CinemaStar drives with capacities up to 1TB in the 7k1000 family but we were most interested in their new GGC-H20N optical drive that features DVD/CD writing and Blu-ray, HD-DVD, DVD, and CD read capabilities in a native SATA interface. While it lacks the ability to write to either the Blu-ray or HD-DVD standards, the drive would make for a very good playback device in an HTPC.
Super Talent
Super Talent was displaying several new USB flash drives but one stood out from the rest. Their new Exelerator series is a high speed USB flash drive that comes in capacities up to 4GB, is Windows Vista ReadyBoost approved, and attaches directly to the USB header port on your motherboard thus freeing an additional USB port on the back panel.
AMD
While it wasn't Barcelona, AMD had several product demonstrations with Call of Juarez being shown on several R600 CrossFire Systems in full DX10 glory. Also making an appearance was Team Fortress 2 on several notebooks featuring the ATI HD 2600XT graphics solutions.
Oh yeah, after scouring several computer shops in the greater Taipei area we happened to find a pair of Barcelona chips available. Okay, maybe we broke into an engineering lab and ran off in the middle of the night with them but hey, nobody caught us. (Ed: and you thought all that time playing Ghost Recon was useless....) Once we get proper motherboard/BIOS support, we'll be ready to actually discuss performance.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
64 Comments
View All Comments
MrEMan - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
So, can someone explain to me what exactly AMD has gotten from its (paid) collaboration with IBM?It seems that once again IBM is unable to deliver on converting from lab design to actual production implementation.
defter - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
I recall that AMD has licensed some process technology from IBM (including SOI).
??? Barcelona is AMD's design, it has nothing to do with IBM.
MrEMan - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
Yes, Barcelona is strictly AMD's design, but are the problems being encountered due to the design, or the manufacturing of the new processors?It seems to me that it is more a manufacturing problem, because the current Athlons and Opterons haven't had any great performance enhancements/clock speed increases over the last few years.
TA152H - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
Neither have Intel products. The fastest product they released was 3.8 GHz, and that was two or three years ago?Neosis - Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - link
Are you comparing a netburst based CPU with these ones?Do you have any idea about Integer Pipelines and Cache Latency?
defter - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
Sub 2GHz speeds and motherboard issues cannot have anything to do with manufacturing issues.Even though 65nm K8s have very low clockspeeds, they are capable of reaching 2.6GHz@65W TDP (2 cores), thus hypothetical K8 based quad core would reach at least 2.6GHz@130W TDP. Since Barcelonas clockspeed is currently limited to 1.6-1.8GHz there must be significant issues with the design itself.
archcommus - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
Let's face it, AMD has no hopes until at least early-mid next year, and that's assuming things DO improve significantly. Maybe they can keep themselves afloat with mediocre video, notebook, and low-power chip sales until then. Who knows what they've been doing there for the past four years since the original A64 launch. I know they had a cancelled project, but that still doesn't explain this kind of delay/lack of progress over that much time.But in the end, you can't win them all. AMD was king a couple years back, and now they're losing. They won't go out of business, and maybe they'll be a completely different company with their first 45 nm/next gen products.
In the meantime, I guess I'm betting on a cheap C2Q upgrade sometime in the next year.
nicolasb - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
There are number of references to "RD600" in this article that should probably read "R600".Gary Key - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
Sorry about that, corrected, it was a long flight home yesterday. ;-)clairvoyant129 - Monday, June 11, 2007 - link
Not surprising, scaling is terrible... by the time AMD rolls out 2.6GHz, forget Penryn, Intel will have Nehalem out.