AMD beefs up its Phenom triple core lineup

AMD said Monday that it has added five new chips to its Phenom II processor lineup.

Of the additions, three new Phenoms are quad-core chips. The other two are triple core. AMD says that the latest Phenom chips hit "mainstream price points"--not too expensive--and boost performance. AMD, which says the latest Phenom IIs are 45 nanometer, is also pitching the latest Phenoms as an easier upgrade path because they fit in multiple sockets and support DDR2 and DDR3 memory. 

Will that latter message resonate?

Perhaps. Here's what AMD says (statement, Techmeme):

AMD’s strategic architecture design lets consumers customize a PC upgrade path that’s right for their budget and overall experience without being forced to pay substantial amounts of money to upgrade their motherboard and memory technology.

Now the big question is: How many consumers will play around with our motherboard or memory technology?

The other takeaway here is that AMD is sticking with its triple-core strategy, which occupies a tweener niche between dual-core and quad-core chips. These chips must be selling somewhat or AMD would have gone all quad-core. 

Here are the latest additions:

• AMD Phenom II X4 910 - (2.6GHz)
• AMD Phenom II X4 810 - (2.6GHz)
• AMD Phenom II X4 805 - (2.5GHz)
• AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition - (2.8GHz)
• AMD Phenom II X3 710 - (2.6GHz)

As for the pricing details, AMD breaks out the Intel comparisons:

The triple-core AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition processor is competitively priced at $145 while the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor is priced at $165; the AMD processor allows users to get more cores for less money. The quad-core AMD Phenom II X4 810 processor (2.6GHz) is priced at $175 compared to the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 processor (2.33GHz) at $170.