AMD Phenom IV X12 170 “Baeca” 25nm CPU Leaked – Has 12 Cores, 6 GHz Core Clock

Codenamed Baeca, the Phenom IV X12 170 processor is built on a 25nm process. AMD has never mentioned plans to use 25nm process in its 2013-2014 roadmap, the only 28nm process designed Steamroller arrives in 2014 with the Kaveri APU. So this is a false assumption, furthermore the Phenom IV X12 170 processor would outdo the 8 core FX-series featuring 12 cores and a 6 GHz base clock speed. All of this within a 75W TDP package. The CPU would also feature a L3 cache of 24 MB. Sure seems alot no?

[KUV1977]

I'd buy that for a dollar.

[Snookies12]

That would be a good investment.

[Gamer1982]

Pretty crap for gaming though as 90% of games still use no more than 2 cores.

[assdan]

Well, I would pay a bit more than a dollar for this. This thing sounds freaking awesome. 75watts sounds doubtful to me though.

[NewsForge]

AMD logic;

"We just suck at improving our architecture. So we will simply boost the clock and add more cores...."

Wonder why I stay with Intel. My i5-2500k destroys their latest 8cores FX cpu's.

1 Intel core = 2+ AMD cores

Intel architecture FTW!!!

[duplissi]

destroys? in what universe?

[pythonxz]

I'll just leave this here:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net...

[duplissi]

yes they do, but he specified the i5 2500k, which does not "Destroy" the FX8350. in fact it is only marginally better than the FX6300

[specialguest]

Lol it's been a while since I've heard that robocop quote.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?...

[KUV1977]

Finally! I felt really old there for a while.

[awi5951]

Ok this would be worth buying a new motherboard for.. It cant be more than 300 dollars though .

[Crazay]

that CPU will no doubt ship for no less than $700 in bulk quantities of 1000. I hope it comes out early 2014 by the end of the year it'll be more reasonable

[fossilfern]

"All of this within a 75W TDP package"

Wow pretty good lets hope its true and performs well. Wonder what this means for the FX series because did AMD not drop the Phenom?

[DeadlyFire]

maybe 12 cores is not the high performance edition. AMD has been working on Server chips with 4/8/12/16 cores with a proposed 10/20 core set of CPUs, but that one was scrapped. Possibly revised in the future.

AMD so far for 2014 has these server chips
AMD Warsaw 12/16 core Server CPU.
AMD Berlin 4 core CPU and APU. Sold both ways. Promises 8x the gigaflops per watt.
AMD Settle ARM based SoC promises significant performance per watt increase with 2x increase over its predecessor.

Don't know much about their desktop line up. They will have Beema, Kaveri, and Vishera FX CPUs as well as the new blend of Steamroller parts. If they feel the need to push 6 Ghz to fight off Intel in the Mid-High end market then I welcome AMD to do it. They could sweep steamroller under a rug and just release Excavator parts.

[Agent_hitman]

I hought Phenom IV is omletely dead.. But anyway, nice to see this.. AMD ftw

[cabbitwithscissors]

So how much faster is that compared to Intel's latest ? and what about price ?

[decrypt]

"So how much slower is that compared to Intel's latest ? and what about price?"

Fixed

[awi5951]

Well the 8320 can be easily overclocked to 8350 speeds and its 150 dollars.

[cesuf]

@cabbit

Lol really? Amd hasn't made a faster chip then intel in years and is far behind. Amd does have interest for some gamers for being a good value for what you spend for low to mid cpu's.

[hennessey86]

I thought the FX8350 was only beaten buy the top of the range i7, intel chips are way over priced.

[NioRide]

Considering the Fx-8350 is what competes with the i7, I find this funny.

In single core performance yes Intel wins, but in full chip performance no they don't, and considering hyper threading causes more problems then helps I find it funny they even still support it.

[edgeofsins]

It's because games don't take advantage of more then 4 cores really.

My friend had a hexcore AMD processor for a while. He upgraded to one of the higher up i5's. Better for gaming, not by much though, but it wasn't better for rendering in Cinema4D.

[Gamer1982]

The problem is theres are only a few games that use more than 2 cores and thats why Intel spanks AMD in benchmarks even with lower clocks thanks to better architecture. However pushing past 2 clocks AMD used to be the best until Haswell came along that cpu set is quad core i5. No games use more than 4 cores right now (well there might be a few indie games?) so Haswell i5 series batters the FX8350.
http://www.bit-tech.net/har...

[I_am_Batman]

Wow. This thing is going to get hot.

[BatRastered]

No it's not... it claims 75W TDP.

Also it's fake as hell.

[awi5951]

Nope get a watercooling H60 or H100 it wont get hot at all .

[jlo]

...and still lower than an intel dual core

[cesuf]

PC games aren't even using 6 cores, so it's a no go for me. Intel's much faster quad is still the way to go. Unless you need cores for work or some specialty area.

However maybe with the console next-gen a few months away from launch (equipped with 8-core cpu), maybe we'll see some games uses that in the future.

[hennessey86]

EA have signed an exclusive deal to optimize for AMD CPU/GPU for battlefield 4 so its already happening and the fact that AMD is powering the next gen consoles bodes well for PC owners like me who have AMD machines.

[NioRide]

GRID 2 uses 7 out of the 8 cores on my FX-8350.

Its programmed to do so, So future games will continue to gain support of more and more cores.

And if you don't believe me and have the game installed you can look through its files, it actually lists how it will run based on the number of cores in a system.

[hennessey86]

It ran smooth as butter maxed out on my FX 8120 as well

[kevnb]

some are, battlefield 3, crysis 3, grid 2, and much more are going that way. DX9 based games wont really use multiple cores fully, but dx11 games already do.

[combatcash]

Not sure why anyone would disagree with you. those games are already using multiple cores.

[cannon8800]

@cesuf

maybe you're right about the first part but ps4 and xbox one both come with eight core processors. You'll see a lot of games using eight cores for pc games also in the coming months.

[cesuf]

lol ok so you agree with both parts of what I said. my second part stated almost word for word what you said. : P

[cannon8800]

lol I just noticed that. I'm sorry something must be wrong with my brain.

[Crazay]

Sweet merciful crap. Think next year might be time up upgrade my system

[GrilledCheeseBook]

Throughout the year there are always leaks of rumored chips. This one has got to be the most dream like.

Reading through these comments It seems like people are actually believing this. Here are the first and last paragraphs.

"Codenamed Baeca, the Phenom IV X12 170 processor is built on a 25nm process. AMD has never mentioned plans to use 25nm process in its 2013-2014 roadmap, the only 28nm process designed Steamroller arrives in 2014 with the Kaveri APU. So this is a false assumption, furthermore the Phenom IV X12 170 processor would outdo the 8 core FX-series featuring 12 cores and a 6 GHz base clock speed. All of this within a 75W TDP package. The CPU would also feature a L3 cache of 24 MB. Sure seems alot no?"

"Note: If you missed the note on the top, then i would like to mention it once again that this rumor is mostly based on false assumptions by the leaker. It’s false since AMD doesn’t has a 25nm process design planned for 2014 nor do they have plans to release a new socket for their FX line of processors."

[DeadlyFire]

Could just be an APU with 4 cores and 8 CU cores. All myths have some truth to them my friend.

Considering current APUs use 100W TDP. Dropping to 75W with this sounds promising. With HSA tucked into it. It adds continual motion to the processing. So there is no stopping.

Although. A 25nm gate length would be typical for a 22nm node. So it is still possible this chip is coming, but as a 22nm part. Not a 25nm part. Maybe it has a 25nm gate length. Lots of things can be misinterpreted in rumors. Picture always gets clearer when you move closer to it.

[powerslide]

Needs to be taken with a pinch of salt alright. By my estimates there is no way 6ghz is possible with 75W TDP on 25nm unless we are talking about 6ghz turbo boost and not an all 12 core. This processor should be good though. They have uncoupled a lot of resources on steamroller to make each module more like a dual core instead of single core with HT. Chances are it will be a valid alternative to the 6 core Ivy Bridge E and it was about time!

[jamz4]

If this is true I will eat my own hair! Maybe in 6 years time

[No_Pantaloons]

This is not true. Wish it were, but there's almost no way.

[imXify]

Most people think they need a powerful cpu for gaming when it's not really the case. I mean, the graphic card is now the most important component to have in a pc, as most applications are now using gpu acceleration. We're at a state where the cpu doesn't really matter anymore.

[MotherLight]

I really have no idea where people have come up with that assumption.

You don't believe me put in the weakest CPU you motherboard can deal with along with slow RAM. Watch how poorly that graphics card will do even if it is the best component in your PC.

Just like any other computing device every single component works with each other. You can't have one really good one and expect it to pick up all the work the weaker components can't handle. A GPU is not a CPU and a GPU and CPU are not RAM.

There is a reason all these things still exist. If what you were saying had any truth to it, we would be seeing PC's now with nothing but GPU's in them running everything.

[edgeofsins]

The CPU is still the most important. Just not as necessary to spend as much money on for gaming.

[imXify]

@at both

Well I was just to say that a mid range Core i5 can do the job perfectly. Maybe a Core i3 could bottleneck the gpu but the decrease isn't dramatic.

A Core i7 or Xeon are for those who does heavy rendering in 3D or video applications.

[thecurseddevil]

whoa 6 ghz?
does it come with a fire extinguisher?

[SpecialK]

Nice.

I'm liking AMD at the moment. Intel may edge it out for single core performance which is good for gaming, but realistically AMD is cheaper and you get more cores for your money, so games that can take advantage of it play really well.

I got an fx6300. Plays games nicely, and blitzes intel for multi threaded processes like 3D rendering, Photoshop etc.

Great if your PC needs to work as an office and gaming machine at once =D

[MotherLight]

Son of bitch just got an 8 core. Shit always happens, save a bunch of money upgrade your PC only to see that you just wasted your time cause its already outdated.

One thing I hate about PC parts, they are being upgraded too damn fast. My wallet can't keep up with it, just like these damn phones.

[aLiEnViSiToR]

Its called progress... or you hate that too... besides why you have to have it all just get what you need not what you want.

ps: i wish this AMD "thing" was real :[ Intel needs a competition...

[bviperz]

Hopefully they'll make a decent motherboard for this chip. Their chips are great, but their motherboards are so dated.

[Tzuno]

nah, i wait for 21cores then i buy.