PC World is reporting that Intel has expanded its shipment lead over AMD according to recent Q3 sales figures.

Intel improved its share in the third quarter to 81.5%, up from 81.2% at this time last year. AMD also improved its year-over-year share by 0.1% to 17.8%.

On the quarter, however, AMD fell 0.7%, while rival firm Intel picked up an additional 1% share over Q2.

The YOY gains for both AMD and Intel come at the expense of VIA Technologies which dipped from 1.1% to 0.7% over the past year.

Illustrating continued refinements in AMD’s 45nm process, the company has launched today a new spin of the Phenom II X4 965 with a lower TDP rating.

The new Phenom II is backed by the company’s brand new C3 stepping which reduces the TDP of the 3.4GHz chip from 140W to 125W. The reduction is primarily due to a reversal of the 0.05V voltage increase AMD needed to push the Deneb architecture to 3.4GHz when the 965 first launched; the new 125W X4 965s now run at just 1.35V.

The new C3 stepping also adds two notable improvements over the previous C2 stepping:

• Hardware C1E implemented for faster power state switches to preserve system performance (with BIOS update).
• Full support for four DDR3-1333 modules running at rated speeds (with BIOS update).

AMD also announced today the immediate availability of version 3.1 of the AMD OverDrive overclocking application. The new AOD release enhances overclocking capabilities with key (unspecified) processors, improves compatibility with CNQ, and offers a suite of bug fixes.

Buyers looking to nab one of the new 125W Phenom II X4 965 chips can find it under the HDZ965FBK4DGM SKU, while AMD OverDrive v3.1 can be downloaded from AMD when the site updates.

Rumors have resurfaced that NVIDIA is looking to support its business by branching into the production of x86 processors.

Speaking on behalf of Broadpoint AmTech, Analyst Doug Freedman said, “We believe Nvidia could enter the x86 CPU business. Nvidia could become a supplier of x86 CPUs by necessity to preserve both GPU and chipset revenue.”

He continued: ”We believe that Nvidia has hired former Transmeta staff extensively, and that instruction code ‘morphing’ requirements have declined as more x86 instructions have come off of patent coverage.”

Transmeta was a company that specialized in ULV processors branded with the Crusoe, and later the Efficeon names. The Crusoe and Efficeon processors differed from traditional CPUs in that the order and manner in which they executed x86 code was handled by software, an architectural design known as Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW).

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Netflix integration in Windows Media Center 7

The HTPC, or Home Theater PC, has been an elusive beast. For years, people have bandied about the concept of building a PC that is a dedicated home entertainment hub rather than a general-purpose computer. Up until very recently, building an HTPC has been a difficult journey to find the sorcerous combination of parts and software that would enable exactly everything one wanted the PC to do.

Luckily, everything has recently started coming together. Retail availability of key technologies such as efficient power supplies, cool and quiet processors, HDMI-enabled and 1080p-capable GPUs, massive storage capacities, and–perhaps most importantly–an HTPC-optimal OS have all come together in a ballet of technology which can provide a seamless and graceful HTPC experience.

We have put together an amazingly high performance and relatively low cost HTPC just in time for the 2009 holiday season. While we did operate with a liberal cost philosophy when it came to component choices, we feel that this remains an affordable project for those in the market for a full-featured home entertainment hub.

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It was a veritable smörgåsbord of AMD information yesterday as vendors revealed the EOL schedule for a suite of CPUs and AMD Japan introduced the firm’s platform roadmap throughout 2011.

Kicking off the information dump, Digitimes assembled an end-of-life schedule for Phenom/Athlon II CPUs on the word of motherboard vendors. These dates are not when the CPUs will no longer be available in stores, but rather when they will no longer be sold to channel partners. One can imagine that the retail stocks will remain healthy for a while after channel sales end, but the CPUs are as good as gone within a quarter. Vendors also put their two cents in to confirm prior speculation that AMD was preparing a hexa-core desktop chip, codenamed Thuban.

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Spoiling the party is a time-honored tradition in the unending rivalry between AMD and Intel. So when we heard that Intel was launching a pair of new Core i7 CPUs, we knew something from AMD wouldn’t be far behind. Sure enough, AMD has turned up the heat with a trio of price cuts on the firm’s top Phenom II X4 CPUs.

Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition

Old price: $249.99
New Price: $215.99
Percentage: 13.6%

Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition

Old price: $189.99
New Price: $179.99
Percentage: 5.26%

Phenom II X4 945

Old price: $169.99
New Price: $165.99
Percentage: 5.88%

Intel has quietly made a new addition to their LGA1366 lineup, the Core i7 960.

The new chip clocks in at 3.2GHz (3.33GHz with Turbo Boost), which puts it in the same league as a Turbo Boosted i7 860 (2.93-3.46GHz). The new chip replaces the 950’s position in the Core i7 lineup, and additionally makes way for the new 975 Extreme Edition CPU.

With a higher average frequency and an identical price of $562, the 950 also casts serious doubt on the value of the new Lynnfield-based Core i7 870.

Green is a hot adjective. In fact, it was one of the fastest growing buzzwords in 2008. Across every industry, green is the new black, being slapped on products that destroy the earth only slightly less than other products.

There are truly green products though, and anything that can cut down on electricity usage in a significant way deserves to be called green. In addition to a spiffy green logo, AMD has been putting out low-TDP processors that provide lower power and cooling requirements with all the horsepower of their regular chips since 2006.

What is TDP, and why does it matter?

Rather than gloss over it, Icrontic has given this topic the proper treatment in another article. In summary, lower TDP means a chip is able to operate reliably below the voltage it was engineered to operate at. This lower voltage results in cost savings due to lower energy usage, lower heat emissions, less noise from the cooling system, and better overclocking due to stability at a lower voltage and thermal envelope.

Low-TDP chips are a boon to businesses, those with environmental concerns, silent PC enthusiasts, home theater PC builders, and gamers alike. (more…)

In the lexicon of acronyms frequently bandied about by geeks, gamers, and computer professionals, TDP doesn’t come up too frequently. Phrases like “How many GHz?” “How many MB of L3?” and “What’s the FSB?” are far more likely to come up in conversation than, “What’s the TDP on that chip?”

What is TDP?

But TDP, or thermal design power, is something that those with energy concerns, noise requirements, or overclocking aspirations should definitely pay attention to. The TDP of any processor describes the amount of heat dissipated during nominal operation. That heat emission is largely the product of a processor’s operating voltage and electrical efficiency; those, in turn, are dictated by clock speeds, fabrication size, and overall architecture.

For example, chips like the Intel Atom and AMD Athlon Neo are designed to use minimal power by drawing a low voltage and running at a low clock speed. Typically armed with single cores and minimal cache, these processors are intentionally simple so they top out around 15W TDP.

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The Athlon II X4 (Propus) die

While enthusiasts are obsessed with flagship CPUs or finding the next Celeron 300C, it’s easy to forget that much of the world is planted firmly in the mainstream. There are no $300 CPUs, massive heatsinks, or multiplier unlocks here. A discrete GPU is a luxury. The very mention of overclocking elicits blank stares. But even if the market is largely a morass of uninspired chips, the mainstream occasionally offers a few surprises, and the Athlon II X4 620 is one of them.

It’s not easy to evaluate a chip which deliberately shrugs the trappings of performance systems; benchmarks merely highlight the architectural compromises that go into hitting a $100 price point. Instead, we felt it would be more valuable to find something it’s uniquely excellent at–an expertise that cannot be expressed in numbers.

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According to reports, AMD is preparing to launch new parts in their Athlon II X2 and Athlon II X3 lineup.

In all, Fudzilla reports that five chips are in the pipeline, including the Athlon II X3 425 at 2.7GHz, 435 at 2.9GHz and 445 at 3.1GHz, as well as the low-power Athlon II X2 235e and 240e chips clocked at 2.7GHz and 2.8GHz, respectively. While not immediately on the docket, he also says that 45w Ranas known as the 400e and 405e will eventually tip up at 2.2 and 2.3GHz. The parts should launch on or around October 22.

The market might just be on the cusp of introducing 32nm chips, but that didn’t stop Intel chief exec Paul Otellini from giving the press a peek at a 22nm part today.

Dubbed P1270, the 22nm process for CPUs is an “immature process” says Intel Director of Process Architecture Mark Bohr. Even so, that hasn’t stopped the company from stamping and showing wafers with 22nm chips called SRAM test vehicles.

An SRAM test vehicle is an alpha CPU used to test a new architecture and a new process node. Each test vehicle is given completed logic circuits and a heaping helping of cache (SRAM) so engineers can go bug hunting before a retail product is launched. That retail product is called Sandy Bridge, and Intel confirms it is on track to launch the all-new CPU architecture in 2011.

Meanwhile, the test vehicle shown at IDF has some impressive figures: 2.9 billion transistors and 45MB of cache in a die the size of a finger nail. For comparison, the newest Core i7 models are nearly four times less dense at a mere 750 million. These numbers are skewed by the tiny size of SRAM (.092μ²) cells compared to other 22nm logic but, even in retail, Intel expects 22nm chips to at least double the density of today’s processors.

A 22nm Intel SRAM test mule (Image credit: Reghardware.co.uk)

Bohr was tight-lipped about the secret sauce in 22nm manufacturing, but it was revealed that the firm is still using 193mm immersion lithography for some of the chip’s layers. Bohr indicated there were some changes, but it’s mostly an evolution of standing processes. This has allowed the firm to reuse approximately 70% of the equipment it employs to create 32nm chips.

With 22nm on the way in a little over a year, what comes next? It’s 15nm in 2013 and 11nm in 2015, says Bohr, and what techniques might be used there is up to fate and fortune.