IBM 5.2Ghz z196 claimed the world's fastest processor
Recently IBM claimed that its 5.2GHz z196 processor is the world fastest processor boasts the ability to handle more than 50 billion instructions per second and yes,without sophisticated cooling system that will make it runs efficiently and prevents it to get toasty.It's four-core slab that sports 1.4 billion transistors utilizing 45 nanometer technology.It's an enterprise chip,so getting this king of processor to your custom built rig won't be that easy.There's video and press release after break.
AMD prepares to kill the ATI brand name,Radeon will live
Ever since AMD acquire ATI we wondered for how long they would keep the brand around considering their ultimate goal was to use ATI's GPU know-how to merge their microprocessor technology and radeon core graphics on a single chip.Four years later and numerous ups and downs for both AMD processors and ATI graphics offerings,the company is finally ready to unveil their first Fusion processor by the end of this year.
AMD feels this is also good time to kill off the ATI branding considering their chipset business has been successfully migrated, and Radeon and FireGL brands stand strong on their own.The company claims that through recent surveys they have found that the AMD brand is favored when compared to it's graphics competitors,namely Nvidia.The switch is not expected until the next generation of graphics products arrive, so all current Radeon HD 5000 series GPUs will be left untouched.Later this year it's expected that the new AMD Radeon HD 6000 series will make an appearance,likely carrying a logo similar ti this :
AMD's first hybrid processor code - named Ontario is expected to become available before the end of this year,with the more powerful Llano APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) meant to follow sometime during 1H/2011.
Ontario will pack two low-power Bobcat cores and Radeon graphics on the same package,meant to be a system-on-chip solution aimed at netbooks,tablets and other low-power devices.Llano will use a derived core from the Phenom II family,but hope is that it will eventually incorporate a more powerfull core based on Bulldozer.
