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AMD said Monday it is set to roll out its next-generation "Shanghai" chip--minus the mistakes of the last generation.

The No. 2 processor maker wants to make one thing crystal clear: Shanghai is not Barcelona. The latter chip was rolled out in September 2007 to great fanfare only to be delayed a whopping eight months (or more, depending how the delay is calculated) due to production glitches and bugs. The chip was also hampered by speed (core clock frequency) limitations. This gave Intel an opportunity to regain ground it had lost to AMD in the server chip market.

"We had some mis-starts in getting Barcelona to market and wanted to bring as much velocity to Shanghai as possible. Learn from our mistakes and, as a company, never do that again," said Pat Patla, general manager of AMD's server and workstation chip business.

Shanghai--a quad-core product targeted at servers--will be AMD's first 45-nanometer processor. (Barcelona is 65-nanometer.) Typically, the smaller the geometries, the faster and more power efficient the chip. Intel has been shipping 45-nanometer processors since last year and these processors now make up most of Intel's offerings.

AMD needs Shanghai to succeed. It is reeling from a string of losses and is on the verge of announcing a major restructuring. "To bring it back to profitability the execution of the server product line is absolutely critical," said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at investment bank Collins Stewart. "That is really their only profit pool."… Read more

Does Intel vPro ring any bells? Not for most people. The newest version of vPro software and accompanying Intel hardware introduced Monday won't command the attention paid to an Intel processor rollout.

Understandable because vPro is an under-the-hood, non-performance-driven technology that falls off many PC users' radar screens. In essence, vPro allows PCs to be fixed and maintained remotely, potentially saving businesses money because they don't incur the cost of IT staffing levels necessary if maintenance was done at each PC on site.

For example, a feature called Remote Alert will "call" IT on its own … Read more

China's Godson-3 chip is ambitious if anything. It proposes to be everything a world-class processor should be--and then some.

Developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it also has a larger goal: microprocessor independence for China. "Their motivation is pretty clear. They don't want to be totally dependent on the outside world for something as important as microprocessors," said Tom Halfhill, an analyst at In-Stat.

But its singular head-turning feature is the proposed Intel "x86" compatibility mode.

"The most interesting part of the chip is that they're adding about 200 new instructions … Read more

Intel updated its processor pricing list with low-cost quad-core and Core 2 Duo desktop processors. A new Celeron D model was also listed.

Intel lists the Q8200 at $224, one of the least expensive quad-core chips that the company now offers. The venerable Q6600 is the only Core 2 Quad that is less expensive.

The 45-nanometer processor has a core clock speed of 2.33GHz and 4MB of cache memory. This is a relatively small amount of cache memory as most Intel desktop quads offered now come with 6MB, 8MB, or 12MB of cache memory. Generally, the more cache memory … Read more

Intel talked up its supercharged processor at the Montevina unveiling last month, but now the first notebooks with it are making their way to the public.

Some people have wondered if four processing cores inside a laptop is overkill, but Lenovo clearly doesn't think so.

Lenovo's ThinkPad W700 is the first to market with the Core 2 Extreme Quad Core processor. As you might imagine, this isn't one of those thin-and-light notebooks the industry is so high on. Nope, the W700 is a mobile workstation, but "mobile" isn't really the emphasis here.

"This … Read more

Is four processing cores inside a laptop overkill? Probably not for gamers. Intel is expected to meet this insatiable need for speed when it rolls out it first mobile quad-core processor.

An Intel executive is on the record stating an August roll-out.

And this may happen sooner in August than later. System vendors may go public with information about the quad-core mobile processor as soon as August 11, according to sources. This is when other processors, such as the Core 2 Quad Q9650 (3GHz), are expected to go public.

Many of the details of the quad-core mobile processor are public … Read more

Sun Microsystems made the Olympic cut. Sun will provide server technology using Intel quad-core processors for NBC's Olympic coverage.

The technology platform will enable live events to be streamed online to NBCOlympics.com during the Beijing Olympics, which take place from August 8-24, Sun and NBC said Monday.

Intel quad-core Xeon processors will power a total of 160 Sun Fire servers that will drive NBC's Web site, according to an Intel statement. Sun Fire X4150 and X4450 servers will be deployed, according to Sun.

The X4150 servers are offered with quad-core Xeon processors such as the Xeon E5440 (… Read more

Intel has upstaged Advanced Micro Devices at DreamWorks Animation. The movie studio has decided to drop AMD and go with processors from Intel, citing better performance and a more promising roadmap.

DreamWorks specifically mentioned Intel's upcoming Nehalem processor and Larrabee graphics chip as reasons for the switch.

Intel and DreamWorks announced Tuesday that they had formed a strategic alliance for 3D filmmaking technology. DreamWorks plans to produce all its feature films in stereoscopic 3D--which requires the viewer to wear special glasses for enhanced 3D--beginning next year. Intel will provide DreamWorks with "the latest high-performance processing technologies, including future … Read more

Nvidia has posted a video that involves the new GTX 280 chip, overclocking, lots of liquid nitrogen, and the Nvidia labs. Oh, and no quad-core processor. Get the point?

"A lot of people believe you need an Intel quad-core or Intel quad-core Extreme to build an extreme PC," says the post by "Steffee" on the Nvidia Web site. "Today I'm going to build a gaming PC using the Intel Core 2 Duo. That's duo. Got that? Duo, two cores."

I think the point the blogger is trying to make is that the … Read more