AMD "Leo" & Six Core Phenom II Arrive

The long awaited AMD Phenom II X6 processors have finally arrived and AMD officially has 6-core desktop processors on the market! AMD today released their new flagship desktop processors that feature six processor cores, but that is not all! The have also rolled out a new frequency boosting technology called AMD Turbo CORE that is available on these new 'Thuban' processors, a brand new chipset that goes by the name of 890 FX for high-end motherboards.

The new AMD Phenom II X6 processors, AMD 8-series chipsets, and ATI Radeon HD 5800 series cards make up what is called the 'Leo' platform and is said to be the ultimate AMD platform for power users.

The addition of the 890FX chipset and even the software updates (AMD Fusion Utility 2.0 for basic performance tuning and easy profile selection and the new AMD OverDrive 3.2.1 Utility) have made AMD a more well-rounded platform.


The AMD890FX chipset is basically superior to the AMD890GX chipset in the sense that it has been stripped of the integrated graphics (IGP) and has two full x16 PCI Express lanes for better performance for those that have multi-GPU CRossFire graphics configurations. Both the 890GX and 890FX chipsets have the primary PCIe graphics card location as a x16 slot when one video card is used, but when two video cards are used the 890GX chipset reduces the number of lanes down to just eight on the slot.

Today they have officially announced the Phenom II X6 1090T (HDT90ZFBK6DGR) for $ 285 and the Phenom II X6 1055T(HDT55TFBK6DGR) for $ 199. These new six core processors help you improve productivity and can be a drop-in replacement for those with existing socket AM2+ and AM3 motherboard. According to AMD at the time of launch, they expect there to be over 160 AM2+ and AM3 motherboards with BIOS updates available (where required) to enable support for the Phenom II X6 processors! This is great news as those with older platforms can spend $199 on a processor like the AMD Phenom II X6 1055T and have a 45nm 6-core processor as a drop-in replacement.

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Acer Aspire One 521 to feature AMD's Nile Platform

Say Farewell to Congo (2nd Generation Ultrathin), and Welcome to Nile platform. AMD's Nile is the new platform for Ultrathin notebook that will be using DDR3 memory.


Acer is reportedly preparing to launch a new 10.1 inch Aspire One netbook that switch from the Intel Atom chip for an AMD chip. The Aspire One 521 is powered by an AMD V105 processor. This is the slowest single core "Geneva" processor of the "Nile" platform, clocked at 1.2GHz, with 512KB L2 cache, DDR3 support and 9W TDP. Performance and further details remain unknown until AMD announces it in May. It is paired with an AMD M880G chipset with integrated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4225 graphics core and 384MB dedicated video memory. The 4225 is not announced yet either and probably has a few minor architectural improvements over the 4200, hence the increased model number, but is likely slower due to ~25% lower clock speed. It supports UVD2 (should be capable of HD video playback) and Acer didn't forget to add an HDMI port.


Eye-catching noticeable is the huge chrome plated logo. This chrome accentuation continues with the power button, which is transparent but has a chrome element.


The netbook will have optional Bluetooth 3 support and a compact charger with changeable plus. The battery is supposed to be good for up to 7 hours. No word on a launch date or price yet. So stay tuned...

AMD Turbo Core Technology

Today AMD is disclosing some basic details about the upcoming Phenom II X6. With the Thuban cores AMD is introducing its version of Intel’s Turbo Boost technology called Turbo Core. AMD has yet to implement power gating on its processors, so Turbo Core works a little differently than Intel’s Turbo.



Turbo Core activates when 3 or more cores (on a 6-core part) are idle. When this happens, the frequency of those three cores is reduced to 800MHz, the voltage to the entire chip is increased, and the remaining three cores are turboed up by as much as 500MHz. In any other situation the CPU runs at its normal clocks.



The CPU handles all monitoring and does the clock/voltage management itself. The switch to turbo up cores apparently happens fast enough to deal with Windows moving threads around from core to core.



Turbo Core is triggered by a deterministic system that is based on load demand and current operating conditions (not temperature). Cool’n’Quiet is active throughout the turbo process. What actually happens is that when CnQ looks to see if a set of cores should be downclocked, it also has the ability to increase the frequency of other cores.

Turbo Core will work only on AMD's new Phenom II X6 CPUs and forthcoming quad-core CPUs based on the new Zosma core design when they launch later this year. AMD also says that Turbo Core won't require new motherboards, and that current Socket AM3 and AM2+ boards that can support Thuban/Zosma will only need a BIOS update to support it.