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Chip maker Advanced Micro Devices announced two “Black Edition” processors, including the company’s flagship six-core desktop processor. These processors join AMD’s 8-series chipset and recently launched AMD Radeon HD 6000 series graphics for PCs that deliver enhanced high-definition experiences in 3D with GPU-accelerated multimedia performance. With these latest technologies, gamers and PC enthusiasts can enjoy the “ultimate visual experience” on a new PC featuring Vision Black Technology from AMD, according to the company.
The AMD Phenom II X6 1100T is AMD’s new desktop flagship processor, offering advanced processing features like unlocked clock multipliers, Turbo Core technology and six-core performance. The company’s Phenom II X2 565 Black Edition is described by AMD as an “affordable processor for enthusiasts looking for performance-tuning capabilities at amazing clock speeds.”
Turbo Core is a performance boosting technology that automatically switches from six cores to three turbocharged cores for applications that just need raw speed over multiple cores. While in Turbo Core mode, the Phenom II X6 1090T shifts frequency speed from 3.2GHz on six cores to 3.6GHz on three cores, making it the fastest processor AMD has ever created.
In addition, features like CoolCore Technology reduce processor energy consumption by turning off unused parts of the processor. For example, the memory controller can turn off the write logic when reading from memory, helping reduce system power. Power can be switched on or off within a single clock cycle, helping users get more efficient performance by dynamically activating or turning off parts of the processor.
Dual Dynamic Power Management technology enables more granular power management capabilities to reduce processor energy consumption, and offers separate power planes for cores and memory controller for maximum power consumption and performance. AMD said this power management capability helps improve platform efficiency by providing on demand memory performance while still allowing for decreased system power consumption.
The growth of high-definition and 3D digital media content has created a new level of immersive visual experience, according to AMD. “The versatility of Vision Technology-based PCs creates almost limitless possibilities for consumers, such as moving to the Internet for video entertainment, creating lasting video and photo memories, playing the most visually intensive PC games, and improving performance when multitasking-all without sacrificing battery life,” an AMD press release noted.
The company’s direct connect architecture, available on the Phenom II processors, helps improve system performance and efficiency by directly connecting the processors, the memory controller and the I/O to the CPU, and is designed to enable simultaneous 32- and 64-bit computing. In addition, an integrated memory controller increases application performance by reducing memory latency and scales memory bandwidth and performance to match compute needs. HyperTransport technology provides up to 16.0GB/s peak bandwidth per processor-reducing I/O bottlenecks-and offers up to 37GB/s total delivered processor-to-system bandwidth (HyperTransport bus + memory bus).
In late November, the company demonstrated its CPU and GPU computing technologies on a single die and processor design, with planned OEM system availability in early 2011. The company’s Fusion Accelerated Processing Units, currently shipping to OEMs and coming to market in 2011, are built from DirectX 11-capable GPU technology and either low-power or high-performance multicore x86 CPU technology, and are designed to improve today’s Internet, video processing and playback, and gaming (client and online) experiences.