Conclusion

AMD is almost ready to launch the Quad Core Opteron processors, but desktop users will have to wait a while longer. If AMD doesn't announce yet another delay, we should see the Phenom FX, Phenom X4 and Phenom X2 processors out in the market by the end of the year. In the mean time, we can only wait until AMD sees it fit to give us a little more detail about the Phenom processors. Right now, we have very limited information about the Phenom family of processors.

First of all, it encompasses three different series, from the super high-end Phenom FX to the enthusiast-grade Phenom X4 and the dual-core Phenom X2. These processors will be quite similar to the Quad Core Opteron processor, with similar L2 and L3 caches but higher clock speeds. However, reports of poor yields and problems ramping up the clock speeds of the Quad-Core Opterons really make us question the possibility of seeing these models launched by the end of the year.

Nonetheless, the Phenom processors when released will feature most, if not all, of the new advanced capabilities we saw in the Quad Core Opteron processor. This includes a new three-tier cache structure, wider SSE3 execution units, better power management and hardware virtualization support. It is possible that the Phenom may not support the more advanced virtualization features like tagged TLB and nested paging found in Opteron but that will only be confirmed when AMD announces more details about the processors.

Right now, we can only wait for AMD to release actual performance figures of the Quad Core Opteron processors. That will give us a good idea of just how fast the new core architecture is, and how fast the upcoming Phenom processors could be.

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