AMD To Simplify Product Line

Winga

AMD has confirmed that it will simplify its product lineup over the next few months. According to a report on HardOCP products which include the Athlon 64 X2 4800+, X2 4400+ and X2 4000+ [which all come with 1MB L2 cache per core] will be discontinued.

AMD's product lineup has become increasingly confusing over the past few years with a lot of overlapping specifications. Their flagship Athlon 64 FX chips will still continue to ship with 1MB of L2 cache per core, and an unlocked multiplier. This hopefully will enable the company to re-focus its Athlon 64 FX processors and increase sales of the chips.

Source: Bit-Tech

muddocktor

Heh, it's all about wafer real estate, not simplifying their product line. The extra cache takes extra wafer space and I guess that AMD already figures they are going to have to cut prices dramatically when Conroe comes out next month, thus trying to maximize profits by cutting out the big cache (and big core) offerings.

Pretty stupid move on AMD's part, IMO.

Leonardo

You are right about AMD needing to be more efficient with the silicon wafers. Their CPUs are more and more in demand all the time. At present, they don't have the necessary fabrication capacity to meet projected increases in CPU orders until they are fully operational with 65nm production (more cores per wafer). It appears that AMD is between a rock and a hard place: reduce cache to improve production rates, or risk having shortages just as they are biting into more market share. That market share is critical for them now. They just can't risk that trend in market share increases flattening out. The fought very hard for every percentage point of market share and cannot, cannot lose ground. Intel has extra production capacity. AMD does not. AMD is has reached a very delicate balancing act in keeping performance up, increasing sales, and transitioning to 65nm with all of their fabs already at 100% capacity production. They apparently have come to the conclusion that the least risky compromise is to lower the cache, that most users will not even notice a performance hit in day to day usage.

Unknown

Wee I Guess if you wanna get your hands onto one of the 1mb cache x2's its now of never huh?

airbornflght

Great, no more 1mb X2's. What is amd thinking, There will be a performance hit, and anyone that wanted one will notice it.

Leonardo

You and I - DIY types, might notice the performance hit, but the great majority of corporate box users and casual consumers who purchase off the shelf retail boxes won't notice a thing, and probably won't even care. AMD either miffs the very small enthusiast community or risks shortages to bulk buyers. The latter could severely damage AMD just as they have gained prestige and high stock values.

airbornflght

but the enthusiast market still has quite a bit of buying power, not near as much as the white box manufactures, but still quite a bit. Not to mention our word of mouth. I dont know, I really see this as amd's attempt to further seperate the performance of the fx from the athalons. because now, you can almost get the same performance of you oc it. Oh well, what can you do?

lemonlime

I agree with you, mudd. I suspect that this is just a move to stay financially competitive upon Conroe launch.

The reason I believe this move will be temporary is the rumors circulating about K8L. With L2 plus a large on-die L3 cache, there will be a lot of silicon needed in the not too distant future.