Dell Set to Introduce AMD's Triple-core Phenom CPU

An anonymous reader writes "AMD is set to launch what is considered its most important product against Intel's Core 2 Duo processors next week. TG Daily reports that the triple-core Phenoms — quad-core CPUs with one disabled core — will be launching on February 19. Oddly enough, the first company expected to announce systems with triple-core Phenoms will be Dell. Yes, that is the same company that was rumored to be dropping AMD just a few weeks ago. Now we are waiting for the hardware review sites to tell us whether three cores are actually better than two in real world applications and not just in marketing."

Comments

Licensing?

[kermit1221]

So, does one have to purchase 1.5 Vista licenses?

Re:Yield, effectiveness

[MiniMike]

> One concern... How do they keep thermal load even if 1/4 of the die is not running?

If running Windows, the OS will cycle through the cores so 3 are always running, and one is cooling. This will usually not cause a problem before the system crashes due to something else.

For other OSes, I would think that the conductive layers over the non-functional core would still be working, and capable of distributing the heat evenly. Same problem as when 1 core is running full tilt and (1, 2, 3 for dual, triple, and quad core) are idling.

Re:You know what would be even better?

[Anonymous Coward]

lol. Please get fatally hit by a crashing roflcopter so we don't have to listen to this kind of shit.

Shick

[Anonymous Coward]

Works for razors - 2 is better than 1, so 3 has got to be better than 2. I'm not switching from Intel until someone comes out with 5 - count 'em, 5! - micro sharp cores...

Re:You know what would be even better?

[omeomi]

But when you think about it, there's a lot of times when a triple core will be "faster" than a quad core.

Like modeling the behavior of triple-core computers, for instance...

Re:Yield, effectiveness

[Ibiwan]

Maybe you missed where he specified this was only feasible in Windows... Who's gonna notice something trivial like a non-functioning CPU core a fourth of the time!?

The AMD Triple Track

[fahrbot-bot]

The AMD Triple Track has three cores - one core to cut into the problem, a second to grab what is left before it can snap back into the cache, and a third core to finish it off. The AMD Triple Track, because you'll believe anything!

[For those too young, the reference is the 1975 SNL parody about the Remco Triple Track Razor - done just after twin-bladed razors first appeared.]

Re:The AMD Triple Track

[TubeSteak]

Would someone tell me how this happened? We were the fucking vanguard of computing in this country. The Intel Pentium 4 was the CPU to own. Then the other guy came out with a 64 bit CPU. Were we scared? Hell, no. Because we hit back with a little thing called the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. That's 3.2GHz and 2 MB of L2 cache. For performance. But you know what happened next? Shut up, I'm telling you what happened--the bastards went to two cores. Now we're standing around with our cocks in our hands, selling 3.2GHz and 2MB of L2 cache. Performance or no, suddenly we're the chumps. Well, fuck it. We're going to eight cores.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33930

[The reference is the 2004 Onion parody about a five bladed razor - presciently done just after the Gillette Mach3Turbo first appeared.]

sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

This will go great with my Sunbeam UniToast (tm) .. the world's first single-slice toaster.

How did Sunbeam create such a powerful and versatile kitchen toaster? Easy! They took their top-of-the line dual-slot toaster, and disabled one slot!

Re:No

[rastoboy29]

Wow, how generous of them.

Dell is dropping 25% of AMD

[flyingfsck]

With one dead core dropped per processor, that would explain the rumours.

Re:There's no need to wait for any reviews

[mpcooke3]

Or to put this another way, my girlfriend can now leave two flash adverts open in firefox on her profile before it totally cripples my machine.

Re:You know what would be even better?

[ScriptedReplay]

But when you think about it, there's a lot of times when a triple core will be "faster" than a quad core.

Particularly, and gloriously so, when the quad-core system is not powered on.

Re:You know what would be even better?

[ozbird]

To paraphrase:

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to three. Look, right across the board, three, three, three and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most cores go up to two?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's better? Is it any better?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one better, isn't it? It's not two. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at two. You're on two here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on two on your computer. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to three.
Nigel Tufnel: Three. Exactly. One better.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make two better and make two be the top number and make that a little better?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to three.

Give him a break

[r_jensen11]

How many dual core chips are really four core chips with two failed cores? Do you know? Face it, it's just the number three which bugs you, and that's pretty childish... The number 3 pisses off a lot of people. I like/tend to attribute it to Mr. Owl's amazing ability to consume Tootsie Roll Pops.

Re:You know what would be even better?

[Jesus_666]

And like I said, nobody programmed their programs to split the processing into three parts, only 1, 2, or 4.

Holy shit. My program uses one thread for the GUI, one for I/O and one for actual calculations. Does that mean it's broken? Can I fix my program by ading a fourth thread that just spinlocks?