AMD's Barcelona summer

If I was to make a top ten list for the most anticipated processors of 2007, I think that AMD’s Barcelona quad-core Opteron chip would top it. An AMD marketing person might say the chip is the most anticipated processor of 2007.

Whether it’s the processor wars, AMD executives saying that Barcelona will outperform Intel’s quad-core chips by wide measures, AMD’s current underdog status and its need for the new Opteron chip to be a hit, or some combination of all of the above, Barcelona is getting a lot of ink.

Now the Inquirer is reporting that Barcelona will run at speeds of up to 2.9GHz, faster than the pub originally expected. (Link.) Granted, AMD itself has said little about Barcelona’s intended speeds. But, if it’s able to deliver the chip at 2.9GHz, AMD would come in on par with Intel’s current quad cores in terms of raw speed. (Intel doesn’t yet have a 2.93GHz Xeon, but it has a 2.93GHz Core Extreme, which proves it can push its quad cores that high in frequency.) It would also position well against Penryn chips, which will run at 3GHz and above. This one fact, in and of itself, is not enough to determine Barcelona's ultimate success. But it would give more weight to AMD's clock-for-clock comparisons. Stay tuned. It’s going to be an interesting summer.