AMD's Barcelona architecture - July update

While the US press were enjoying a full on Analysts Day courtesy of AMD, exploring virtually their entire roadmap for the next couple of years, us UK-based types enjoyed some much simpler fare from the processing powerhouse. 

With product plans further down the line firmly pushed to one side (apart from one or two brief mentions), the agenda of the day was very much an update on AMD's latest planning and positioning for their native quad-core, 'Barcelona'-based parts.  Although there was nothing new announced per-se for anyone who has been following the gestation of Barcelona closely, it does afford us an opportunity to take a brief look at just how (quad-core aside) 'Barcelona' has been tweaked and changed compared to its predecessors, as well as how AMD plan on marketing it to the masses of system builders and buyers in the IT industry.

Although all of the talk was of Opteron Barcelona-based parts, some of the points contained within the presentation (with regard to hardware functionality specifically) are also relevant for the desktop version of these cores, in the form of the Phenom CPUs we should be seeing towards the end of this year.

So, with all of that in mind, let's take a look at just what AMD had to say, although before that, what better way to begin that with a little 'geek porn', courtesy of AMD's Barcelona die shot for your enjoyment.