AMD will unveil the world’s first tri-core processor next month. Even though it is just a disabled quad-core, benchmarks have shown that the third core scales well in multi-threaded applications. Just as Agena B2 suffers from the infamous TLB bug, so does Toliman B2. AMD issued a BIOS fix that crippled performance, but later decided to withdraw the fix after deeming it unnecessary on the desktop market. The bug simply hasn’t been triggered. We’ve been told that AMD is considering to ship Toliman B2 only to OEMs.
Retail launch will have to wait the until supply is better, and/or the B3 stepping is ready to hit the market. Since the TLB bug is irrelevant to the desktop market and B3 offers no performance advantage over B2, we can only come to the conclusion that AMD is short in supply of Tolimans and want to satisfy OEMs first. Both HP and Dell are expected to release Toliman-based systems next month. Demand is expected to be high.
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