AMD takes FX gaming processor dual-core, launches FX-60 chip

Sunnyvale (CA) - AMD today added a new flagship to its gaming processor series. The FX-60 now sports two cores and clocks in at 2.6 GHz. The manufacturer promises up to 80% more performance over "similar" single-core processors. AMD also added two new mobile processors, the Turion ML-42 and ML-44, to its portfolio.

Just about two weeks ago, Intel introduced the latest version of its Extreme Edition processor based on 65 nm technology, with higher clock speed and less power consumption. But according to the engineers at Tom’s Hardware, the chip was gaining ground on AMD, but not able to trump AMD’s single core FX-57 processor in terms of performance and performance-per-watt.

The new FX-60 chip now takes AMD’s gaming CPUs into the dual-core age and, according to the manufacturer, will bring substantial performance jumps. The average digital media speed will climb 34 percent (as long as the support multithreading), while "certain" (multithreading-capable) benchmarks will show up to 80 percent improvement, AMD claims.

AMD’s latest processor is very similar to the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ processor, but integrates enhancements in key areas. While overall transistor count stays at 233 million and the chip still is built in a 90 nm SOI process and integrates 2 x 1 MB of L2 cache, the clock speed increases from 2.4 to 2.6 GHz. Dropping the operating voltage compared to the X2 processor enabled AMD to maintain a power envelope of 110 W.

According to AMD, the FX-60 processor is available immediately and is priced at $1031 in 1000-unit quantities. Retail pricing will be substantially higher, as even the predecessor FX-57 still fetches an average of $1025, according to Pricegrabber.com’s Market Reporter.

The manufacturer quietly also updated its Turion processor chart on its website. New are the Turion ML-42 and ML-44 processor, which aim at medium sized notebooks due to their 35 W thermal design power. The company also offers MT-processors with a power envelope of just 25 W. The ML-42 and ML-44 are both clocked at 2.4 GHz, but differ by integrating 512 kB and 1 MB of L2 cache, respectively. The highest performing MT chip currently is the MT-40 with a clock speed of 2.2 GHz.

There is very little public information available on AMD’s processor plans for 2006. AMD officials indicated at CES last week that the company intends to keep official news about its upcoming products scarce as long as it has a solid performance and power lead over Intel. However, multiple industry sources also mentioned at CES that there could be a few surprises from AMD so far, including a dual-core mobile processor that may be released as early as in Q2 of this year.