San Francisco (CA) – Hector Ruiz’ time at the AMD as we know it today is coming to an end. Ruiz recently stepped down from his role as CEO, but kept his position as chairman of the board with the purpose of launching AMD’s Asset Light and Asset Smart strategies, which are expected to split AMD into two entities. And this event is only weeks away, industry sources told TG Daily.

It is widely expected that Asset Light will part AMD into two companies – one that is led by newly crowned CEO Dirk Meyer and a focus on the development of chip technologies and a manufacturing arm that will take over AMD’s fabs. Our sources indicated that critical decisions are being made at this time and the official announcement of Asset Light and Asset Smart will be made next month.

Hector Ruiz’ future role remains a mystery, but it is expected that Ruiz will remain with AMD in one capacity or the other, possibly as CEO of the manufacturing company. We previously published an extensive analysis that sheds some light on the company’s future direction. It appears that much of Ruiz’ future has already been ironed out and AMD’s marketing team is now working on a way to preserve Ruiz’ legacy in AMD’s history books to avoid the perception that the executive caused the company’s current critical state. Read the rest of this entry »

Following the official announcement of Nehalem processors’ name, Intel has launched four new 45-nm processors. See them below:

NewsFlash: San Francisco (CA) - Lots of new processors will be announced next week at the Intel Developer Forum. Among them will be two special processors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_processing_unit for enthusiast notebooks.

Intel’s first two quad-core http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-core processors for notebooks will be the Core 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2 Quad Q9100 and Core 2 Extreme QX9300. The 9100’s four cores http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coree will run at 2.26 GHz, while the Extreme Edition will be clocked at 2.53 GHz. Both CPUs integrate FSB1066, but only the QX9300 has an unlocked multiplier.

In terms of price, don’t expect these new flagships to be cheap. Tray-pricing for the Q9100 will be $851; the Extreme QX9300 will go for $1036. Vendors are likely to charge even more for dual-core to quad-core upgrades. For example, Eurocom charges $1220 for an upgrade from a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo P8400 to a Core 2 Extreme QX9300.

Both quad-core CPUs are identical to their desktop counter-parts, albeit with a reduced FSB clock (266 MHz QDR instead of 333 MHz QDR or 400 MHz). The CPUs will also feature 12 MB of L2 cache.

This unlocked multiplier is necessary to allow overclocking or increase the speed or the GHz rating of a CPU. Overclocking a CPU can be beneficial in many ways. For instance users can purchase cheaper components and overclock it to achieve the speed of more expensive ones. This process is not advised for simple tasks like web browsing with broadband Internet connection or whatever type of Internet connection.

Although AMD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices took the hardware community by surprise with the performance of RV770 and the derivative Radeon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon HD 4850/4870, things didn’t go entirely according to plan. The company launched its boards immediately after Nvidia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia , which turned around and slashed the prices on its own models, determined to win this round of the ongoing graphics card http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_processing_unit war.

And yet, a month and a half after the launch of AMD’s newest round of products, the verdict hasn’t changed. Neither the GeForce GTX http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_9_Series 260 nor the GeForce 9800 GTX+ (only recently made available) can take on the Radeon HD 4870 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radeon_R700 with regards to price or performance, even in light of heavy cuts from Nvidia.

But AMD’s not out just to make waves with the gamers looking for value. It also wants to reclaim a crown it lost a long time ago to Nvidia’s last two generations of large, monolithic programmable graphics architectures. As a means to that end, the company is putting a pair of its most impressive GPUs on a single PCB and calling it the Radeon HD 4870 X2. Now the question remains: does the new board have the muscle to take on Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 280, the single fastest card?
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