Rumor: AMD has stopped Phenom II X2, X4 production

[Shawn Knight]

The latest rumor regarding AMD claims that the company has already pulled the proverbial plug on the production run for their budget-minded Phenom II X2 and X4 processors.

The rumor comes courtesy of Kitguru who claims to have heard “something very interesting about AMD’s traditional CPU lines”, although at the end of the article the author hints that the rumor could possibly be self-generated. Valid or not, the story brings up some very good points about the present and future of AMD’s processor lineup.

It’s extremely likely that AMD has plenty of X2 and X4 processors in inventory and the same can be said for outlets across the globe. Odds are also high that AMD could indeed halt production on these lines today and still have enough stock to feed demand and cover warranty claims. Moving production away from these aging pieces of silicon would free up resources that could be used to manufacture next generation Fusion and Bulldozer CPUs. 

It's worth noting that this jives with inside sources cited by DigiTimes in late June. At the time, it was reported that Athlon II chips would drop from 70% of AMD's total processor shipments in the second quarter to 40% in the third, 30% in the fourth and the series would be retracted by early 2012. Various Phenom II chips were pegged for a similar fate with X2, X4 and X6 parts expected to disappar over the next six to eight months.

AMD Fusion APUs have been in production since 2006 when the company acquired ATI. AMD released the Brazos mobile solution in February and followed it up with Llano in June.

The 8-core Bulldozer-based FX-8130P has already been publically benchmarked last month. In general, performance seems better than Intel's top Sandy Bridge offering. Early indications point to a September 19 release date for the new FX-series processors.

Socket AM2+ Phenom II chips have been in circulation since December 2008 with Socket AM3 chips finding their way to market in February 2009.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/44909-rumor-amd-has-stopped-phenom-ii-x2-x4-production.html

 

[Cueto_99]

IMO The Phenom II X4 955 will always be remembered as one of the best price/performance CPU's from AMD, aside from it's unlocked multiplier and easy overclockability, it could handle almost everything in the middle/enthusiast segment for quite a while...

First edition phenoms will also be remembered as a total failure because of that annoying bug...

Now it's time to see what bulldozer brings to the table!

 

[Mizzou]

I had one of the original Phenoms, it was disappointing to say the least. Assume this action means that we're full speed ahead on the FX series. I also am looking forward to some legitimate benchmark results on Bulldozer.

 

[Route44]

I also am looking forward to some legitimate benchmark results on Bulldozer.

Agreed. I am holding off building a new PC system until solid information and user experiences are given; I am really hating the rumors and speculations.

As for the topic in hand, I've always wondered what AMD and Intel did with their unsold stock. Most likely destroy.

 

[R3DP3NGUIN]

Cueto_99 said:
IMO The Phenom II X4 955 will always be remembered as one of the best price/performance CPU's from AMD, aside from it's unlocked multiplier and easy overclockability, it could handle almost everything in the middle/enthusiast segment for quite a while...

First edition phenoms will also be remembered as a total failure because of that annoying bug...

Now it's time to see what bulldozer brings to the table!

Amen!!!, although getting to 4Ghz was a pain on most 955's, the C2 chip which I have is only stable at 3.9GHz

 

[Sarcasm]

Doesn't this make sense anyway seeing as how they're moving onto their next generation processors.

 

[Mizzou]

Doesn't this make sense anyway seeing as how they're moving onto their next generation processors.

That's how I read it, leads me to believe that any remaining issues with Bulldozer have been resolved. After all, if AMD has something can really compete with Sandy Bridge you'd think they would want to get it to market.

 

[Guest]

my AMD 955 is running just fine in my AM3+ 970 mobo while holing a seat for BD

 

[dividebyzero]

I've always wondered what AMD and Intel did with their unsold stock. Most likely destroy.

OEM's and lower-tier high-volume markets (PR China primarily)
Dell will quite happily sell you a C2D based system, but then, Dell are nothing if not cuttting-edge.

That's how I read it, leads me to believe that any remaining issues with Bulldozer have been resolved. After all, if AMD has something can really compete with Sandy Bridge you'd think they would want to get it to market.

More a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Llano will pretty much destroy the Athlon II/Phenom II x4 market in any case. If you're in the market right now for an AMD based system then the majority of people would likely be swayed by the APU. It also doesn't make a lot of sense to market old-technology directly against your new models. Phenom II X6 is seen (generally) as the only series that offers a credible alternative to an Intel system...so it stays in the lineup. At least until BD is in the retail channel in sufficient numbers. When AMD announce the X6's demise, that will signal that all is right with BD (yields and volume).

 

[Guest]

As you can read here http://www.donanimhaber.com/islemci/haberleri/AMDnin-8-cekirdekli-Bulldozer-FX-islemcisi-ve-test-sonuclari.htm , the Donanim Haber's review was a bad joke by this guy http://obrovsky.blogspot.com/ . His name is Zdenek Obermaier (OBR means "giant" in Czech), and he writes first class reviews for this site http://pctuning.tyden.cz/ . He had at least three engineering samples of Bulldozer for testing in previous months, and he has a full production sample now. All his reports say one thing - Bulldozer is not a real competition for the best Intel processors, it is even weaker than the i7-2500K. Its strenght is multithreading, and the most aparent weaknes is very low one core power. At Zdenek's blog, there will be more bengmarks leaked in the following days (probably - some day ago, he deleted one graph after the AMD request ... it was sumarized FX-8150 performance (better than the best AMD six core processor, but worse than 2500K ..).

 

[Guest]

Good riddance.

 

[Breech]

R3DP3NGUIN said:Amen!!!, although getting to 4Ghz was a pain on most 955's, the C2 chip which I have is only stable at 3.9GHz

I'd be happy really happy if my C2 would go that far. My third core starts getting really unhappy after 3.7 no matter what I do.

 

[Guest]

OBR is a great big phony who hates AMD.

He admitted to faking multiple screenshots and still is faking more, newer ones; attempting to make AMD look bad.

"more benchmarks soon"...more like
"I need more time to photoshop"

ALL of his "benchmarks" are incredibly fake and any future ones will probably be fake as well. I've looked at his screenshots and the benchmarks for known processors in existence do not match actual legit benchmarks.

He can't even get the already released cpu benchmarks faked right lol!

 

[red1776]

As you can read here http://www.donanimhaber.com/islemci...-Bulldozer-FX-islemcisi-ve-test-sonuclari.htm , the Donanim Haber's review was a bad joke by this guy http://obrovsky.blogspot.com/ . His name is Zdenek Obermaier (OBR means "giant" in Czech), and he writes first class reviews for this site http://pctuning.tyden.cz/ . He had at least three engineering samples of Bulldozer for testing in previous months, and he has a full production sample now. All his reports say one thing - Bulldozer is not a real competition for the best Intel processors, it is even weaker than the i7-2500K. Its strenght is multithreading, and the most aparent weaknes is very low one core power. At Zdenek's blog, there will be more bengmarks leaked in the following days (probably - some day ago, he deleted one graph after the AMD request ... it was sumarized FX-8150 performance (better than the best AMD six core processor, but worse than 2500K ..).

It's hard to know where to start telling you whats wrong with that paragraph.

and he writes first class reviews for this site

inbetween the fake ones does he?

 

[Guest]

"He can't even get the already released cpu benchmarks faked right lol!"
as we can't check his claims, we can yours - be more specific, please ...

"It's hard to know where to start telling you whats wrong with that paragraph"
you can, no problem for me ..

"inbetween the fake ones does he?"
you can read some of them, if you want - first class work, totally different from some of his blogs's drivel .. I think his benchmarks are not faked, of course, future production units can be more powerful .. but still waiting for "official" reviews too

 

[red1776]

"He can't even get the already released cpu benchmarks faked right lol!"
as we can't check his claims, we can yours - be more specific, please ...

I nominated your post for the ' most incoherent of the year' ...keep your fingers crossed!

as we can't check his claims, we can yours

Huh?

 

[Guest]

"He can't even get the already released cpu benchmarks faked right lol!"
as we can't check his claims, we can yours - be more specific, please ...


1) There isnt enough information on the benchmarks. Sometimes only the resolution is posted, fsaa/aa or high/medium/low quality information is unavailable.

2) When trying to compare "benchmarks" to legit sites or benchmarks done by people with ---actual--- screenshots of cpuz/gpuz and settings posted, they dont seem to match. It's hard to compare with almost no game settings posted, but overall they seem faked since all I could find to compare them to didnt match.

3) The "benchmarks" seem to rise on the intel side based on cpu speed but when it comes to amd/bulldozer side the "results" are sometimes lower than older amd cpus.

Real benchmarks have shown that sometimes the x4 phenoms can be faster than the x6 in certain benchmarks. The gradual increase in the intel "benchmarks" from cpu speed just seems incredibly faked.

4) I dared him on his website to run 3dmark11 and screenshot the advanced results with cpuz/gpuz in the picture. Pretty sure this will never happen. He faked this one before but the screenshots were so small it was laughable and it was a bunch of separate small blurry screenshots.