Well, here's some more heartwarming news for AMD fans...

[Wesley]

A list of the specs for the new family of processors based on Piledrive has just been released! The family's codename is Vishera, named after an island that forms a part of the Southern Islands to the south of Singapore. The new family has the product names as expected, but a lot has changed in the meantime while Bulldozer has been fighting it out for market relevance.

I'll admit that I've been waiting a while for something concrete to pop up for AMD's next batch of chips. Since the release of Bulldozer the company has been focusing its efforts on their APU lineup and working on the mobile Piledriver cores, dubbed Trinity, which NAG recently reviewed in their September edition (which will be detailed on the site sometime this week) in a HP Pavilion DM6 Ultrabook alternative. While the updates Trinity brings to the notebook segment are noteworthy, its the desktop that needs a significant performance overhaul as Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs begin to chew into more market share. And it seems like the company has been doing a lot of work judging by the changes in the specs sheet.

Linky

[.exe]

I really hope AMD's cpus start to shine at some point. As I understand it, it's their IPCs that they really need to ramp up in a big away, being handily beaten by Sandy and Ivy offerings in that area.

My first gaming PC had an AMD cpu, actually my first four processors were all AMD, and so I've always had a soft spot for AMD as a result. Besides, you have to root for the underdog.
But at the moment, I'd be a fool to look anywhere other than Sandy/Ivy.

[Wesley]

AMD's FM2 chips are ready for an October launch

So over the long weekend I saw some posts on Facebook by Evetech's page of the company testing out some new FM2-based hardware with AMD's closed-loop water cooling kit. All indications are that the new family of chips are ready for a launch in the beginning of October. Whether this is a worldwide or region-specific launch hasn't yet been confirmed by AMD, but cross off October 1 for when reviews around the world go live.

Among the FM2 models being prepped for launch are the quad-core A10-5800K, A10-5700, A8-5600K and A8-5500; the six-core A6-5400K and the dual-core A4-5300. The chips are still built on the 32nm process but have undergone significant changes to improve power consumption and fall under a lower TDP. All the chips will also have the new HD7000 graphics cores, although they're merely rebranded ones at higher clock speeds from the previous HD6000 APU generation.

Linky

[Wesley]

AMD Trinity chips on our shores yet?

With the month finished and November around the corner, I thought it would be about the right time for a quick look around the internet to see if anyone had AMD Trinity chips in stock. At rAge I spoke to one of the Evetech reps who said that the company had seen some consumer interest both before and during the expo and was expecting chips to show up closer to the end of the month. So if you wanted one, where could you find it?

Linky

[Wesley]

AMD has more price drops in the pipeline for socket FM1

So you may be planning to pick up an AMD-based rig in the near future and were looking at potentially grabbing one of the socket FM1 processors on the cheap. Well you're in for a treat because AMD has introduced a new round of price cuts for the outgoing APU family. The A4-3300 gets the biggest drop of 21.7%, sliding from $46 to $36, enough to give Intel Celeron buyers some reason to consider their purchase decision. I've omitted the price drops for the AM3 Athlon II family because we won't get those processors in stock anytime soon (if ever) so this is all that's currently relevant for buyers. Who's getting one?



Source: TechpowerUp!

[Cpt.Monde]

Nice! I'm really considering switching over to AMD as the A8-3870K has a very good price tag (and from what I've read, it's also quite a good CPU).

[Wesley]

Nice! I'm really considering switching over to AMD as the A8-3870K has a very good price tag (and from what I've read, it's also quite a good CPU).

Pay close attention to the A10-5700 or the 5800K. My money is on the lower TDP of the 5700 persuading HTPC users to taking the red pill.

[Wesley]

AMD is working on a FX-8300 and HD7890

AMD’s been busy in the last two months releasing a new family of processors on a new socket and updating their AM3+ lineup of FX CPUs. In the FX range, the FX-8320 is probably the best value for gamers and is priced around $169. The company has announced its intention to release cheaper a FX-8300 priced around $159, with default core speeds of 3.2GHz boosting up to 3.6GHz, an unlocked multiplier and a low 95W TDP, matching the FX-4300 and FX-6300. There’s also a HD7890 in the works, designed to combat the Nvidia GTX660 Ti and be at least 10% faster. AMD expects a December launch for both products.

Source: TechpowerUp! (link1, link2)

[Cpt.Monde]

Pay close attention to the A10-5700 or the 5800K. My money is on the lower TDP of the 5700 persuading HTPC users to taking the red pill.

Indeed! Just had a look at the TDP for both the A8-3870K and A10-5700. The 3870's is a bit too high for my four year PSU so I might just hold-out a bit and wait for the 5700 and the FM2 motherboards to hit our shores.

[Wesley]

Rumors about an AMD sale start up again

AMD is currently worth $1.45 billion in market value, a little under a hundred times smaller than Intel's value of $103 billion. Its surprising that the company has lasted this long in the game where nearly every other player in the x86 market bowed out, was eaten by competitors or simply quit because the license fees became too much. With mounting debt north of $2 billion, AMD has hired JP Morgan Chase & Co. to explore financial options for the company moving forward. What could those be? A sale is one of the possibilities, as well as the company selling out a large amount of stock options to investors who can give it a much-needed cash injection. Lets see how this plays out. It didn't help that AMD sold their foundry off as a separate company in order to balance the books, so which part, other than 15% of the workforce, will be coming off next?

Source: Reuters

Edit: As an aside. I don't expect a sale of the company or even a part of its patent portfolio. I believe that the collaboration with Sony will be enough to calm investors and even show that the company can turn a profit, it was just waiting for the market to see the APU for what it really was - a brilliant idea just ahead of its time.