AMD publishes specifications of new mobile CPUs

At the end of July, and then again at the end of August, we discovered 10 upcoming AMD mobile microprocessors from Danube platform in specifications of HP ProBook 6455b / 6555b and HP Pavilion dv6 notebooks. Days ago, AMD added characteristics of all but one of these microprocessors to The 2010 AMD Mainstream Platform page. The Danube platform page includes 9 new models, comprising of power-efficient and standard-power microprocessors from single-core V140 to quad-core P940 and N950. We don't know yet whether this is a preparation step for upcoming launch, or an indication that the microprocessors are already launched. Even if the processors are not officially released yet, all of them are already shipped in numerous notebooks.

All 9 new models are evolutionary updates of existing microprocessors from V Series, Athlon II, Turion II and Phenom II mobile families, and they are clocked 100 MHz higher than the first models, released in May of this year. The processors are based on K10 microarchitecture, and feature single die design, integrated DDR3 memory controller, HyperTransport link, 512 KB or 1 MB L2 cache per each core, and support for technologies like SSE3 and Virtualization. The microprocessors work in S1g4 variation of the socket S1.

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On the budget end, there are three microprocessors from V Series and Athlon II families. The new V series V140 CPU operates at 2.3 GHz, and it is crippled in every way. This model has only one core with 64 bit wide FPU unit, 1.6 GHz HyperTransport link, 512KB L2 cache, and support for DDR3-1066 memory. Two new Athlon II mobile processors, P340 and N350, have two cores, and that's the only their advantage over the V series V140.

Mid-class microprocessors are represented by Turion II P540 and N550 models. These dual-core processors have higher clock frequencies, twice large size of level 2 cache (1 MB per core), and a bit faster 1.8 GHz HyperTransport link than aforementioned Athlon II and V series CPUs. The Turion II models also have 128-bit wide Floating Point Unit.

On the high-performance end, AMD plans 4 new Phenom II models - triple-core P840 and N850, and quad-core P940 and N950. Like the Turion IIs, these parts have 1.8 GHz HyperTransport link and 128-bit wide FPU. Phenom II N850 and N950 processors also support faster DDR3-1333 memory. Due to smaller size of per-core L2 cache and lower core frequencies, than Turion II CPUs, these Phenom IIs won't be as fast as Turions in single- and dual-threaded apps, but perform better in multi-threaded applications owing to larger number of cores.

One additional Phenom II Dual-Core Mobile model, that was mentioned in our older stories is N640. This processor is not included on the Danube platform page, but the CPU is readily available in HP Pavilion DV6-3130US, Toshiba Satellite L675D-S7052 and other laptops, and, we believe, it will be launched along with 9 new mobile microprocessors.

Two Phenom II Black Edition models were not updated. These are Phenom II Dual-Core Mobile X620, and Phenom II Quad-Core Mobile X920.

Brief specifications of all new processors are provided in the table below:

Model	# Cores	Frequency	L2 cache	DDR3 support	HT frequency	TDP
Phenom II N950	4	2.1 GHz	4 x 512 KB	1333 MHz FSB	1.8 GHz	35 Watt
Phenom II P940	4	1.7 GHz	4 x 512 KB	1066 MHz FSB	1.8 GHz	25 Watt
Phenom II N850	3	2.2 GHz	3 x 512 KB	1333 MHz FSB	1.8 GHz	35 Watt
Phenom II P840	3	1.9 GHz	3 x 512 KB	1066 MHz FSB	1.8 GHz	25 Watt
Phenom II N640	2	2.9 GHz	2 x 1 MB	1333 MHz FSB	1.8 GHz	35 Watt
Turion II N550	2	2.6 GHz	2 x 1 MB	1066 MHz FSB	1.8 GHz	35 Watt
Turion II P540	2	2.4 GHz	2 x 1 MB	1066 MHz FSB	1.8 GHz	25 Watt
Athlon II N350	2	2.4 GHz	2 x 512 KB	1066 MHz FSB	1.6 GHz	35 Watt
Athlon II P340	2	2.2 GHz	2 x 512 KB	1066 MHz FSB	1.6 GHz	25 Watt
V-Series V140	1	2.3 GHz	512 KB	1066 MHz FSB	1.6 GHz	25 Watt