AMD silences quad-core critics

AMD has released benchmark data for its upcoming Barcelona quad-core server processor, and has demonstrated a quad-core Phenom desktop processor running at 3GHz.

Barcelona is scheduled to ship in August. Phenom is slated for release in the fourth quarter of this year, although AMD has yet to say at which clock speeds the first chips will run.

AMD came under fire last month when it announced that its Barcelona quad-core server processor would ship at 2GHz, sparking speculation that it would not be able to deliver on an earlier promise to outperform Intel's chips.

Intel, by comparison, is shipping a 2.66GHz X5355 Xeon quad-core chip as its fastest server processor and has a 3GHz model for workstations. The chip maker has gained market share in the server market in recent months.

AMD boasted at its Technology Analyst Day at its Silicon Valley headquarters that its processor outperformed a 2.33GHz Intel Xeon quad-core processor by 25 per cent in the SPECfp_rate2006 benchmark, and claimed a 30 per cent advantage on the performance-per-watt metric.

The chip firm claimed that comparing Barcelona with the 2.33GHz E5345 Xeon provided similar configurations in terms of power consumption and clock speeds, making for the most honest comparison.

Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies, said that the new data ends the debate about whether AMD will be able to keep its performance promise.

"This gives AMD bragging rights for some period of time," he said. "Given the broad assault from Intel, it is good for AMD to achieve a large victory."

Kay warned, however, that the benchmarks are comparing a future AMD product with a current Intel chip, which makes for a somewhat skewed comparison.

Jim McGregor, a director at analyst firm In-Stat, suggested that AMD's victory might be short lived. "I do not see the leapfrog right now," he said.

But McGregor added that competitiveness in the chip market depends on more than performance benchmarks. Factors such as power consumption and price also come into play.