What we know about AMD's roadmap so far is that three Phenom II X6 processors will see the light of day in the second quarter of 2010, with a fourth chip slated for Q3. These will range in clockspeed from 2.6GHz on up to 3.2GHz in 200MHz intervals, each with 6MB of L3 cache. Here's how it breaks down in detail:
- AMD Phenom II X6 1090T: 3.2GHz (3.6GHz Turbo), 6MB cache, 125W, Q2
- AMD Phenom II X6 1075T: 3.0GHz (3.5GHz Turbo), 6MB cache, 125W, Q3
- AMD Phenom II X6 1055T: 2.8GHz (3.3GHz Turbo), 6MB cache, 125W/95W, Q2
- AMD Phenom II X6 1035T: 2.6GHz (3.1GHz Turbo), 6MB cache, 95W, Q2
The big announcement today is the introduction of AMD's Turbo Core technology. Similar to Intel's Turbo Boost, both of these technologies are designed to compensate for programs that don't take full advantage of all available cores. With AMD's Turbo Core technology, when three or more cores aren't being utilized, Turbo Core will automatically overclock the remaining cores by up to 500MHz for a modest speed boost. AMD says this is enabled by default and doesn't require any special software, drivers, or utilities to futz with - everything takes place behind the scenes. What's more, Turbo Core is supported by all AM3-based motherboards, though we suspect a BIOS update will likely be in order.
Unlike Intel's Turbo Boost, AMD's implementation never shuts idle cores off and extra voltage has to be applied to all cores, not just the ones being overclocked. But unless you're an engineer, you're not likely to care about the nuts and bolts of how it works, just so long as it does.
