10/24/2011 10:19:00 PM
dannzfay
AMD FX-6100 and FX-4100 Bulldozer CPUs Arrive in Europe
Almost two weeks after the introduction of AMD's first FX-Series processors based on the Bulldozer architecture, the FX-6100 and FX-4100 CPUs have now started to make their appearance into stock at various retailers across Europe.
Even though officially launched, the chips have been missing from the stores shelves as the Sunnyvale-based chip maker has concentrated its efforts on making available the eight-core FX-8150 and X-8120 processors.
This situation will however soon change as SweClockers reports the first batch of FX-6100 and FX-4100 CPUs made its way into German stores, while in Sweden these will arrive sometime later this week.
The FX-6100 and FX-4100 pack six and four computing cores respectively, come with support for AMD's Turbo Core technology, have an unlocked multiplier and both chips feature a of 95W TDP.
The six cores included in the FX-6100 are clocked at 3.3GHz and these can reach 3.6GHz when all are in use or a maximum of 3.9GHz when only three cores are active, while the FX-4100 is clocked at 3.6GHz and features a 3.8GHz maximum Turbo speed.
In order to be able to compete with Intel, AMD also dropped the price of the FX-8150, which since its introduction lost about 14% from its initial MSRP.
AMD launched the first FX-Series processors based on the Bulldozer architecture on October 12, but despite being eagerly awaited by many PC enthusiasts the performance of the chips has disappointed.
In most tests that were run by reviewers, AMD's FX-8150, lagged behind the Intel's Core i5-2500K, while a few tests showed it coming behind even a last-gen Phenom II X6 1100T processor.
In order to fix some of these performance issues, AMD is apparently working on developing a B3 stepping of the Bulldozer architecture that should get launched later this year.
AMD Develops New Platforms for Ultrabook-Like Laptops
While Intel most certainly gets all the credit for coming up with the Ultrabook concept and marketing it in the notebook market, AMD is by no means going to overlook this sector and in 2012 and 2013 will introduce a series of APUs that are destined to power its own Ultrabook-like laptops.
AMD hopes that in this way it will be able to improve its position in the notebook market, where it currently holds about a 10% share.
According to DigiTimes, the Sunnyvale-based chip maker plans to introduce two platforms for this type of ultra-thin products, the first coming in June of 2012 and going by the name of Deccan, while the latter will be released in 2013 and is known under the code-name of Kerala.
Most of you are already accustomed with Deccan as we detailed this platform in series of previous reports, but I will still go through a quick refresher for those of you that aren't all that familiar with the subject.
Deccan is comprised out of the Wichita-based APUs and of the Yuca FCH, and the former will include up to four processing cores, a built-in graphics core as well as some of the I/O functionality usually found in the FCH controller.
As far as the 2013 Kerala platform is concerned, information is scarce at this point in time, but it will most probably use a system-on-a-chip (SoC) design, just as is the case with Wichita.
We also know from previous leaks to reached the Web that the Kabini APU used for this platform will be based on the AMD Jaguar CPU core architecture with support for DDR3 memory.
Both of these platforms will have to go ahead against some strong opposition as it seems that March 2012 will mark the introduction of Intel's Ivy Bridge processors, while in 2013 AMD will have to compete with Haswell.
The two Intel processor architectures will bring an impressive series of improvements to the table, including much lower power consumption, so AMD will really have to step up its game if it wants to make it in the Ultrabook space.
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