AMD Phenom II X6 might pose a threat to Intel Core i7

Despite the $300 price range that the new Phenom II X6 is in, there's a chance for AMD to look one price bracket up assuming it can continue with performance advances. If the core and uncore improvements in the Phenom II X6 bring that per-clock difference to less than 10 per cent, and keep the clock speed differential low, AMD has a strong chance of getting back a bit of former glory in the higher margin $400 to $500 desktop CPU market, a segment where it has been absent for over two years now.

The Intel Core i7 980X is unlikely to be beaten in the performance race, and Intel can always announce a, say, 3.6GHz Core i7 990X if need be, as there is enough margin left. However, with the Phenom II X6 1090, AMD will still come close enough to, at very least, attract some attention from the buyers otherwise looking for an Intel Core i7 880 "Lynnfield" Nehalem update, for instance.

So, I do expect the Phenom II X6 1090 to benchmark at within 15 to 20 per cent of the Intel Core i7 980X performance in most benchmarks, assuming that HyperThreading is off and Turbo is not enabled. This means 15 to 20 per cent slower, just to be clear. However, it is not that great a difference, and remains to be seen in actual benchmark tests.

In overclocking, I am hearing that a lot of high end Phenom II X6 parts can easily run at 4GHz in every day production use if properly cooled on good boards, and AMD, unofficially, seems to agree. As you know, Intel's existing chips have had no problems in the 4+GHz segment for quite a while, so AMD having a six-core CPU that can do 4GHz without heroic efforts is a big plus.

However, whether that will lead to any market share improvement for AMD remains to be seen. First, it has to be able to produce as many of these high bin 1075 and 1090 chips as possible, and that volume is not known right now regarding the yields in the 45nm process. Secondly, it can't be too aggressive with pricing as the chips will still have to make acceptable profits, yet it will have to be more aggressive than Intel is in that particular market segment.

The third question revolves around the fact that - except for the Core i7 980X and of course Xeon 5600 workstation and server processors - Intel didn't bother to introduce the six core Westmere to the general PC market. Simply, the PC OS and application requirements and usage capability to maximise six cores are just not there yet. Speeding up the Lynnfield Nehalem CPUs in the LGA1156 socket by another notch or two - the Core i7 890 model slot is still unused - in Intel's mind could be a good enough answer to keep AMD at bay until Intel's Sandy Bridge and AMD's Bulldozer are launched early next year. At the same time, AMD needs to find more killer apps to show how it can optimally make use of six cores at the same price as Intel's four core chips, or alternatively offer four-cores-only versions of the Phenom II at higher clock speeds in the meantime.

Talking about the Bulldozer, the Phenom II X6 and its Opteron "Lisbon" twin are the last high end AMD CPU introductions before that next generation of chips appears. Since the AMD Bulldozer and Intel Sandy Bridge announcement dates are expected to be quite close, both vendors may want to drum up their respective cases well ahead of time. And what better way to do that than making more good sales of existing top bin CPUs before then?