Phenom II by AMD 45 nm Quad Core CPUs for Gaming PCs

AMD has launched Phenom II - a pair of quad core processors built using
45 nm technology. The pair includes the 3.0GHz X4 940 Black Edition and
the 2.8GHz X4 920. The Phenom II processors are central to another
launch by AMD - the Dragon platform for gaming and video processing. The
Dragon platform also consists of ATI Radeon HD 4800 series graphics and
AMD 7-series chipsets.

The Black Edition offers an unlocked multiplier and should find takers
with the overclocker community. Phenom II offers backward compatibility
with most motherboards. A BIOS update may be required to ensure that the
company’s Cool’n'Quiet 3.0 Technology works smoothly.

AMD hopes to present Phenom II as a cost-effective option to the Intel
Core series of chips. In fact, Phenom II offers features such as an
integrated memory controller and HyperTransport interface absent in Core
2 Quad chips.

The X4 920 and X4 940 retail at $275 and $235 for 1KU sets, respectively.

Phenom II features at a glance -

L1 Cache: 64K instruction, 64K data cache per core (512KB total per
processor)
L2 Cache: 512KB data cache per core (2MB total L2 per processor)
L3 Cache: 6MB (shared)
Memory Controller Type: Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller
Types of Memory Supported: Up to DDR2-1066MHz
Packaging: Socket AM2+ 940-pin
Approximate Transistor count: ~758 million (45nm)
Approximate Die Size: 258 mm2 (45nm)