AMD Tri-Core Phenom to ride on Xbox 360 fame

Three cores provide an ideal way to keep quad-core wafer production at a maximum efficiency, since manufacturing a four-core chip and delivering just a dual-core product (if only one of the cores is faulty) would significantly dent AMD's current and future margins.

AMD spinners put spun on the fact that application developers have already adopted Tri-Core concept, especially in the world of games. This is a fact, since there are far more applications for Xbox 360 than native quad-core or more multithreaded apps. Still, the company has some way to go in order to execute this K10 desktop line-up, now consisting of four different brandings: Phenom FX (Agena FX, Deneb FX - Socket 1207+), Phenom X4 (Agena, Deneb, Propus - AM2+), Phenom X3 (Agena/Deneb with one core disabled), ending with Phenom X2 (Kuma/Regor).

The fate of this product lies in the price and performance differences between dual-cores, tri-cores and quad-cores. If AMD succeeds in selling TriCores, there might not be a future for Kuma and Regor, dual-core K10 in 65nm and 45nm variants. µ

See Also
AMD prepares three-core processors