Tri-core computing with AMD's Phenom X3 8750, it's the Core Truth.

With the incremental increase in multi-core computing AMD last year surprised pretty much anybody in the world when information leaked regarding a roadmap showing CPUs with not 1, 2 or 4 cores on them .. no three cores.

In Latin we'd call this 'Triplex Uniter' and to date it surely has been one of the most gossiped about processors.

Make no mistake, the triple core processor is in fact a quad-core Phenom CPU with one core disabled, something AMD obviously will never admit. See, AMD made a bit of a mistake in their released X3 technical specs; it mentions the X3 processor with the exact same transistor count as the X4 Phenoms, so now we know for a fact that the X3 physically is an X4 with one core disabled.

Whether this is a either a 100% functional Phenom X4 processor, or somewhat bad yields Phenom processors with one core disabled because it's defective remains a mystery. And even so, there's nothing wrong with that, why write off a processor that can work better than a dual-core processor, yet didn't make it as a quad-core processor ?

These new x86-based desktop X3 processors will complement AMD's Phenom multi-core processors, which the company introduced in May 2007, with the new B3 revision released just weeks ago.

Utilizing the Direct Connect Architecture, the new triple-core Phenom features an integrated memory controller and a shared L3 cache. Just like the quad-core Phenom, this mainstream-market CPU also supports HyperTransport 3.0 and up to 16GB/sec of high bandwidth I/O as well as Cool‘n’Quiet 2.0 technology that enables independent frequency adjustments to each processor core, and the HyperTransport bus and memory controller.

With three cores enabled, it also makes sense that the price is somewhat lower, perhaps even up-to 25%,  and let's be honest here .. that might be a really nice deal -- though three cores sounds pretty odd for a home desktop processor, doesn’t it?

So then, recently AMD released their Phenom X4 50-series processors, with an all new fixed B3 core, with which they can now leave the past behind them and move forward with processors that can actually start competing with the competition. Today we'll look at a B3 based Phenom X3 xx50-series processor, the Phenom X3 8750.

Let's have a quick architectural overview, and then dive into what it's all about .. performance benchmarks.