Promocion de examenes de certificacion microsoft en lima peru

Ayer me entere de la siguiente promocion , si hay alguien interesado en certificarse en productos microsoft, esta oferta cae perfecta.

SQL 2005 y 2008 estan muy buenos y estables, el 2003 ni que decir, he empezado a usar el 2008 y me gusta pero come bastante RAM, pero con lo baratas que estan mi PC ya tiene 8GB y si las uso toda, eso si todo en 64 bits para poder aprovechar toda la memoria, 32 bits ya fue....

Ya saben si quieren su MCTS o MCITP este es el momento.

Ojo no trabajo en new horizons,

Saludos desde lima.

Aprovecha la nueva promoción de Second Shot con

descuentos exclusivos:

40% de descuento en tu examen, si lo compras y tomas en el mes de noviembre.

30% de descuento en tu examen, si lo compras y tomas en el mes de diciembre.

20% de descuento en tu examen, si lo compras y tomas en el mes de enero.

Y en caso que la necesites, la segunda chance la puedes tomar hasta junio del 2009

Además...

Si pasas tu examen en la primera oportunidad,

obtienes un 25% de descuento en un examen diferente.

Hasta el 28 de febrero de 2009 puedes obtener este descuento. (Debes tener en cuenta que esta oferta no se aplica sino pasas el primer examen al primer intento). Esta promoción es válida en exámenes tomados hasta el 31 de diciembre

Para adquirir un examen contáctate con:

mysql 5.1 GA sera lanzado el 6 de diciembre - partitioning,

MYSQL 5.1 con partitioning

Lo que mas me interesa de esta version es el partitioning, lo probe en unas versiones anteriores y no era muy rapido y lo que mas me incomodaba era que por cada particion te crea un archivo mas !!!, cuando la mayoria de tablas que uso crece en mas de 30 millones de registros por dia es necesario contar con este feature, por ahora tengo que generar tablas por hora e implementar una logica para poder usarlas como si fueran una.

Veremos como le va...

Saludos desde lima

Intel core i7 (aka Nehalem) en peru? cuando llega a wilson?

Todo muy bonito, todos los bench indican que es mas rapido que todo lo existen

Pero el procesador $320 (920 el mas barato), la placa X58 ($300) las memorias que tienes que comprarlas de 3 en 3 ($150) para aprovecharlo al maximo (triple channel) , todo precios USA.

Con lo mismo me armo un par de PCs con Q6600 con 8GB (o casi 3) que superan al juguete anterior, todavia creo no migro, primero que bajen las DDR3, otro punto debil es que usan DDR3 1066 , habiendo ya de 1600Mhz casi estandar y como el controlador de memoria esta integrado no vas poder usarlas a full con esta version de CPU.

Tambien que bajen las mainboards X58 , $300 es un exceso. y no trae nada interesante el ICH10R tambien lo tiene las G45 y P45, salvo para los gamers que quieren usar 2X SLI o 3x SLI, yo con mi 7600 estoy bien por ahora, Nvidia tambien amenaza en bajar sus precios por perdida de market share ante AMD, mejor espero, aqui en Peru lo mejor es comprarse un 9600 o 8600 con disipador pasivo (sin ventilador), me ha pasado y he visto mil veces como ese ventilador se malogra y la tarjeta ya fue, prefiero desde el inicio adaptar un cooler en el case y solucionar ese problema.

Segun los bench el triple channel tampoco implica un incremento importante en comparacion al
existente dual channel (que casi todas las placas son con DDR2 1066).

Veremos que pasa........ ojala que los Phenom II X4 a 45nm puedan hacer en algo la competencia a un precio accesible.



Saludos desde lima

Intel introduced its most advanced desktop processor, the Intel Core i7 processor. The Core i7 processor is the first member of a new family of Nehalem processor designs, with new technologies that boost performance on demand and maximize data throughput. The Core i7 processor speeds video editing, immersive games and other popular Internet and computer activities by up to 40% without increasing power consumption.

The Core i7 processor more than doubles the memory bandwidth of previous Intel Extreme platforms, speeding the transfer of computer bits and bites in and out of the processor with Intel Quickpath Technology. Designed with Intel's Hyper-Threading Technology, the processor also allows multiple computing threads to run simultaneously, effectively enabling it to do two things at once. As a result, the Core i7 quad-core processor delivers eight-threaded performance.

The Intel Core i7 processor also offers unrivaled performance for immersive 3-D games—over 40% faster than previous Intel high-performance processors on both the 3DMark Vantage CPU physics and AI tests, popular industry computer benchmarks that measure gaming performance. The Extreme Edition uses eight threads to run games with advanced artificial intelligence and physics to make games act and feel real.

The Intel Core i7 processors and Intel X58 Express chipset-based Intel desktop board DX58SO Extreme series are for sale immediately from several computer manufacturers online and in retail stores, as well as a boxed retail product via channel online sales.

The Core i7 processor is the first member of the Intel Nehalem microarchitecture family; server and mobile product versions will be in production later. Each Core i7 processor features an 8MB L3 cache and three channels of DDR3 1066 memory to deliver the best memory performance of any desktop platform. Intel's top performance processor, the Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition, also removes overspeed protection, allowing Intel's knowledgeable customers or hobbyists to further increase the chip's speed.

Intel Core i7 processor specification
Processor	Clock speed (GHz)	Price	QPI speed (GT/sec)	Cache	Memory speed support	TDP	Processor generation
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition	3.20	US$999	6.4	8 MB	DDR3 1066	130W	New Intel Core microarchitecture (Nehalem) 45nm
Intel Core i7- 940	2.93	US$562	4.8
Intel Core i7- 920	2.66	US$284	4.8

November 2008

Examen Microsoft 70 -113 performance based en new horizons

Acabo de dar el examen 70 -113 en New Horizons , en opinion, me parece interesante el examen , tienes que tener experiencia con todas las herramientas,te dan acceso a una servidor via remote desktop, me toco que el acceso era bastante lento lo que demoraba en ejecutar las operaciones, si tienes mucho tiempo yo creo que muchos la hacen ya que pueden "pasear" por todas las opciones y encontrar la respuesta, inclusive tienes acceso a la ayuda de windows .....

Creo que los examenes definitivos van a durar menos tiempo.

Espero estar entre los 3000 primeros y obtener esos 3 vouchers gratis, parece que si , parece que no, ya veremos ....

Saludos desde Lima, peru

Exam 70-113 Pilot Extended to Dec. 17

Microsoft is providing three free vouchers toward any MCP exam for first 3,000 test takers as an incentive to take this pilot exam.

by Michael Domingo
October 30, 2008

According to a recent Microsoft Learning blog post, the group is extending the pilot testing phase for its performance-based Active Directory exam.

Pilot Exam 70-113: TS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring, pilot testing has been extended to Dec. 17th. As a pilot exam, test takers provide feedback and get a taste for the new performance-based exams that the group will be adding to the mix of question types. So, what's the incentive this time to taking these exams when you don't get anything in return, such as credit toward the Active Directory exam itself?

Microsoft, for its part, is offering three vouchers good toward taking any Microsoft certification exam, limited to the first 3,000 pilot test takers worldwide. The catch is that you must reside in a region where the pilot exam is being delivered and you must register seven days prior to taking the exam.

For more details and to obtain the promotional code to take the exam, click here.

To read reviewer Andy Barkl's insights into the 70-113 Pilot exam, click here.

For training and self-study resources for this exam, which is based on Exam 70-640, click here.

Parece que windows server 2008 va en serio

WinHEC: Windows Server 2008 R2 Pushes Processor Limits

by Kurt Mackie

November 7, 2008

Windows Server 2008 R2 got the lion's share of attention on Thursday at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles, starting with a keynote by Microsoft exec Bill Laing.

Laing is Microsoft's corporate vice president of the Windows Server Division. While much of the news about Windows Server 2008 R2 features had been disclosed last week at Microsoft's Professional Developer's Conference, the keynote hit the high points for an audience consisting largely of Microsoft's hardware engineering partners.

The R2 version of Windows Server 2008 isn't generally available yet, but it's being reviewed by some of Microsoft's partners. It's expected to be publicly available in late 2009 or early 2010.

Nonetheless, WinHEC attendees could still see Windows Server 2008 R2 in action during Laing's keynote. Onstage with Laing were two big-box servers, including the Hewlett-Packard Integrity Superdome Server using Intel Itanium x64 processors plus two terabytes of memory and the IBM x3950 M2 Server running Intel Xeon x86 processors.

Other enterprise servers tested using Windows Server 2008 R2 included the NEC AsAmA and Unisys ES7000/one.

Laing emphasized that the Windows Server 2008 R2 build is capable now of scaling operations from 64 logical processors (the current limit) to 256 logical processors on the Superdome Server. With the IBM x3950 M2 Server, the system scaled up to 192 available cores.

The keynote also demonstrated what to do with all of this computing power by running a live demo of a massive SQL Server application that was occupying about 82 percent of the Superdome Server's capacity. Within a few seconds, the load balanced automatically across the 256 logical cores when the demo was run. A graph of the system's performance was relatively flat across all of the processors.

The demo used a next-generation build of SQL Server, code-named "Kilimanjaro," which Microsoft expects to ship sometime in the first half of 2010. Kilimanjaro was announced in October at the Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference in Seattle.

Laing emphasized a number of features to look for in Windows Server 2008 R2. It will have a power-saving ability through a "core parking" feature, which reduces power consumption on lighter loads by using a minimum amount of processors.

Power conservation is certainly important. Datacenters consume about 1.5 percent of total U.S. energy production, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study that WinHEC presenters referenced.

The R2 release of Windows Server 2008 will support "live migration," which lets you move a virtual machine from one server to another without apparent disruption to an end user that may be tapping those resources.

Users will have a choice of using PowerShell or a graphical user interface with the System Center Virtual Machine Manager. Microsoft is also adding remote capabilities to its management solutions.

The keynote was also an occasion for Laing to declare that Microsoft is done with 32-bit servers. It will no longer sell them, favoring the 64-bit variety. Laing said that we are almost through a 64-bit transition phase, especially with falling prices for DRAM.

Microsoft's big announcement during the keynote was the scale up to 256 logical processors. However, 256 apparently is not the limit.

"We'd love to do 512 [logical processors], said Arie van der Hoeven, Microsoft's senior program manager for the Windows Kernel Team, in a session talk also given on Thursday. He added that with Microsoft's Windows Server 2008 R2 software, there is "no limit" to the number of processors that can be supported.

The limitation, if any, is that Microsoft needs to test in advance with the available hardware -- hence the promoted 256 number.

Microsoft is targeting the under $25,000 server market with Windows Server 2008 R2, and that represents about half of the enterprise server market, van der Hoeven said.

One interesting bit of information is that Windows Server 2008 and the Windows 7 client both share the same kernel. The shared kernel marks a change in direction for Microsoft, which no longer plans to fork the code between server and client Windows operating systems.

The challenges of maintenance programming

The world of programming has changed quite a bit since computers were first developed. One relative constant is the way in which programs are created; specifically, the idea of source code represented as standard ASCII text. It has been decades since we evolved from using hex editors or punch cards to using text editors. I think it’s time to look at how we work with the source code (presuming that the idea behind source code does not evolve anytime soon).

Most of the programming that I’ve done required me to come in behind someone else to make changes. It is fairly rare that I do “clean slate” programming. I suspect that most programmers are primarily doing maintenance at this point. For the maintenance programmer, the number one challenge is to find out enough about the code so you can strive to be as effective as the original programmer. This is just some of the information maintenance programmers have to pick up in short order:

• Learn naming conventions well enough to be followed so that the new code mixes well with the original code.
• Find out where the documentation is and how to update it (and what kinds of information belong in it).
• Learn where and how to make common presentation-layer changes, such as error message text, font sizing, or the images used in the application.
• Discover where input validation occurs and what the validation rules are.
• Learn how to produce output in a way that is as similar as possible to the original code; in other words, if the original code combines an external resource file with a presentation template, your code should not contain hardcoded output.
• Uncover “gotchas” such as long-running loops that block the main thread, making the application appear to be hung when it is actually operating normally.

This is why it often takes two days to make a 10 minute change — or even longer if the maintainer has never worked with that codebase.

If you believe that most programmers maintain code much of (or even most of) the time, the cost of programming can be dramatically reduced by making maintenance more efficient. If you study the above list carefully, you will see that having a clear conception or model of the code in your mind is the key to being able to perform maintenance efficiently. Many of the tools from Microsoft Research’s Human Interactions in Programming (HIP) group are designed for efficient code maintenance; in particular, Backstory, Code Thumbnails, and Software Terrain Maps.

It is unfortunate that none of these items are shipping products or even in a public beta state yet. Backstory is quickly making progress; I am told that it should be available in some condition in a few months, and I am hoping to catch up with its creator then. I am looking forward to using Backstory, particularly since my current project is 95% maintenance (much of my learning about the code is to learn where in the configuration to change things).

I learn a piece of code by reading through it once or twice and then stepping through the execution in a debugger (I really like Visual Studio’s auto watches for this task). The IntelliSense in Visual Studio is a huge help because it lets you quickly see the available methods and properties of a class; the Go to Definition command is a lifesaver as well.

How do you become familiar and comfortable with a new piece of code?

J.Ja

info in /proc directory

One of the most interesting directories on any Linux system is /proc, a virtual filesystem that provides a plethora of information on the hardware of the running system, and of the various processes running. In fact, many programs such as ps and top obtain their information by mining /proc.

Some well-known virtual files in /proc include /proc/cpuinfo, which prints out information on the running CPU(s); /proc/meminfo, which prints out information on installed memory; and /proc/cmdline, which provides the arguments to the Linux kernel at boot.

Other lesser-known files in /proc include:

• /proc/apm, which provides information related to Advanced Power Management, if installed
• /proc/loadavg shows the system load average
• /proc/filesystems shows the available filesystem support in the kernel and whether or not they are in use on a block device
• /proc/mounts will show what mounts are currently active, what block device they belong to, where they are mounted, and what options were used to mount them
• /proc/net directory contains more files, all related to network information

Most of these files look like text files so can be looked at using the cat utility, such as:

# cat /proc/cpuinfo

processor       : 0

vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD

cpu family      : 15

model           : 47

model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+

stepping        : 2

cpu MHz         : 2202.909

...

Further, if you look inside /proc, you will notice quite a few numbered directories. These numbers correspond to running processes. Inside each directory are a number of files that give information regarding the process. For instance, /proc/1/ would contain information on process #1, which is typically init.

Some files in this directory are symlinks; the /proc/1/cwd symlink points to /, which indicates that init’s current working directory is /, the root directory. The /proc/1/exe symlink points to /sbin/init, the program that is running. The /proc/1/cmdline is a file containing the command-line used to execute the program. The /proc/1/status file indicates the status of the program, which can be used to determine if a program is sleeping or a zombie process, the amount of memory it’s using, the number of threads, the user/group privileges it is running as, and more.

To determine what files are in use by a process, look in the /proc/[pid]/fd/ directory. Each link in the directory will point to a file that is in use by the process in question.

There is a lot of information in /proc that can be found by those willing to look. A number of front-ends exist to help parse the information — tools like ps, top, and free, among many others provide more human-readable information, but to really find out what a program is doing, the authoritative resource is the /proc directory.

Get the PDF version of this tip here.

Number of microsoft certified professionals MCP MCITP MCSE MCSA MCDP

Official information at march 31, 2008

It seems that the SQL 2005 is the more popular of the new cert schema and surprisingly the MS operations 2007 exam is the second !!!!!

Microsoft credential	Certification	Worldwide achievers
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS)	.NET Framework 2.0: Distributed Applications .NET Framework 2.0: Web Applications .NET Framework 2.0: Windows Applications SQL Server 2005: Business Intelligence Development SQL Server 2005 BizTalk Server 2006: Custom Applications Business Desktop Deployment Solution Accelerator 2.0 Business Desktop Deployment with the BDD Enterprise Project Management with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Managing Projects with Microsoft Office Project 2007 Microsoft Exchange Server 2007: Configuration Microsoft Forefront Client and Server: Configuration Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2006: Configuration Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007: Configuration Microsoft Office Groove 2007: Configuration Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 Microsoft Office Project Server 2007: Configuration Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007: Applications Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Application Development Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007: Configuration Microsoft Office Visio 2007: Application Development Microsoft Team Foundation Server: Configuration and Development Windows Mobile 5.0: Application Development Windows Mobile 5.0: Configuration Windows Server 2008 Active Directory: Configuration Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure: Configuration Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure: Configuration Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Application Development Windows SharePoint Services 3.0: Configuration Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007: Configuration Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007: Configuration Microsoft Virtual Earth 6.0: Developing Applications Windows Server 2003 Hosting, Configuration, and Management Windows Vista: Configuration	5,457 18,603 9,639 1,088 27,526 1,983 2,002 2,558 413 806 4,729 235 271 754 35 750 15 106 1,627 5,687 31 304 193 392 7,377 6,633 7,380 1,314 3,187 160 225 18 454 18,869
Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA)	Database Infrastructure Messaging Solutions	13 38 61 73
Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD)		80,547
Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD)	Microsoft .NET Visual Studio 6.0	33,098 46,181
Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (MCPD)	Enterprise Application Developer Web Developer Windows Developer	4,101 4,115 1,369
Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA)	SQL Server 2000	150,079
Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (MCDST)	Windows XP	42,243
Microsoft Certified IT Professional (MCITP)	Business Intelligence Developer Consumer Support Technician Database Administrator Database Developer Enterprise Project Management with Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 Enterprise Support Technician Enterprise Messaging Administrator	478 482 4,433 1,742 128 3,696 1,468
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE)	Windows Server 2003 Windows 2000 Windows NT 4.0	113,454 289,842 395,778
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE): Messaging	Windows Server 2003 Windows 2000	9,719 9,082
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE): Security	Windows Server 2003 Windows 2000	15,063 8,325
Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA)	Windows Server 2003 Windows 2000	176,576 147,280
Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA): Messaging	Windows Server 2003 Windows 2000	64,162 30,465
Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA): Security	Windows Server 2003 Windows 2000	17,794 4,981
Microsoft Certified Learning Consultant (MCLC)		54
Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT)		13,137
Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)		2,254,381

MIT Courseware

It is always good to check for info on the MIT open Courseware

You can find very good info about a lot of subjects. like you have taken the course.

http://ocw.mit.edu/

Managing veritas volume manager on sun

The only documents you need are :

A short and quick guide :
http://eval.veritas.com/downloads/van/vm_quickref.pdf

The full blown documentation.

http://sfdoccentral.symantec.com/index.html


I hope it would be useful

A very good course about Service management

Service Management

Lecture 1 : Introduction to Service Engineering

Lecture 2 : Measurements, Little's Law

Lecture 3 : Measurements; Models - The Second Prerequisite

Lecture 4 : Project (Processing) Networks; DS PERT/CPM

Lecture 5 : Fluid Model of a Service Station

Lecture 6 : Scaling and Dynamic Randomness; Poisson Processes

Lecture 7 : Service Times

Lecture 8 : Customer Patience

Lecture 9 : MJP – Part 1 ; 4CallCenters

Lecture 10 : MJP – Part I1 ; Palm/Erlang-A

Lecture 11 : G/G/1 and Multi-Server Service Stations ; Economies of Scale

Lecture 12 : QED Q’s Part I; Staffing

Lecture 13 : QED Q’s Part II; Staffing

Lecture 14 : Skills-Based Routing (SBR)

Lecture 15 (Virtual) : Queueing Networks

You can find the original link here :

http://iew3.technion.ac.il/serveng/Lectures/lectures.html

The streets hit back: a review of Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV
Developer: Rockstar North
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3 (Reviewed)
Price: $59.99 (Shop.Ars)
Rating: Mature

Grand Theft Auto IV is on store shelves. You can go to your local retailer right now and buy a copy. If you notice, there is no rioting in the streets. There were no terrorist acts. Shootings haven't spiked, and I'm guessing your car is still in the driveway, having not been stolen. Prostitutes are as safe as they've ever been. Somehow the game has been released and the world continues to creak along without major incident. Well, except for a few missing copies.

When I received my copy of the game, my neighbor said he'd like me to bring the game over, since his wife had never seen a Grand Theft Auto title before. She had, of course, read and seen much coverage of the game in the mainstream media, and she wanted to know what was so bad about the game. I played it for three hours, and she was surprised. First, she didn't think the games had a story; she was under the impression you just ran around killing cops and sleeping with hookers. Second, she was shocked that the content was pretty mild, overall; she described it as an R-rated movie. "So what is all the fuss about? We're all adults here," she asked after we talked about it for a while.

Rationally, there shouldn't be much fuss, but Grand Theft Auto has been made a talking point for every media outlet and politician who wants to score an easy point against the gaming industry and look like they are protecting the children. Grand Theft Auto IV isn't appropriate for children, not in the slightest, but its existence alone also isn't harmful to them.

This is your playground

On the other side of the debate you have the reviewers, giving the game a perfect ten, straining the limits of hyperbole by saying the world of gaming has been changed, that nothing will ever be the same, that every bar has been raised by this title. It's hard to get to know Grand Theft Auto IV as a game, and it's even harder to understand it through all the noise.

That's a shame, because the moments that make this game something extraordinary—and it is an extraordinary game that cooler heads will still be discussing years from now—happen when things are quiet. In one scene during my time with the game, Niko Bellic is driving his motorcycle in the morning mist, and the city opens up in front of him. We're heading towards a shootout and don't know how many people are going to be there or what's in store. The Smashing Pumpkins song "1979" is playing on the radio.

This is Niko's story, yes, but the moments in the game that grab you will be different for everyone. That's what makes the title unique, and it's why Grand Theft Auto releases are a cultural event. Rockstar puts America under the microscope, and what happens in the game doesn't reflect them as much as it reflects you.

Liberty City is yours. Welcome.

A review of the triple-core AMD Phenom X3

Last September, AMD announced its intention to bring a triple-core processor to market as a mid-range alternative to its upcoming quad-core Barcelona processor. The company's triple-core launch schedule was subsequently derailed by a TLB erratum in Barcelona's B2 silicon revision, but the launch of Barcelona's B3 revision last month put the plans back on track. So last week, AMD officially unveiled its Phenom X3 triple-core processor, code-named Toliman.

AMD is taking a gamble with Toliman. Without a good way of creating product differentiation via clock frequency—current Phenom X4 processors top out at 2.5GHz—Sunnyvale will have to rely almost entirely on core count as a pricing mechanism. That's a risky approach for several reasons. When AMD launched the first desktop dual-core processors in May, 2005, many desktop and consumer-level applications used some level of multithreading and got a boost from the second core. But the benefit of moving from two to three or four cores is much less clear for the majority of workloads and is much more likely to depend on specific application-level optimizations.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, though. If AMD had managed to keep to the roadmaps it was showing last fall, current Phenom X4's would be topping out in the 2.8GHz-3.0GHz range. A strong, high-frequency quad-core part would've given AMD much more freedom to offer parts based on both core count and frequency. As things stand, however, AMD will have to keep very close watch on X3 pricing and the chip's price/performance ratio in order to ensure that the new triple-core defines its own market without cannibalizing X4 sales.

The Phenom X3 (Toliman) and Phenom X4 (Agena) processors listed below all have model numbers that end in x50, which means they're all based on AMD's latest B3 silicon revision. The X3 and X4 are structurally identical; each independent Phenom core has a dedicated 512K L2 cache, and all the cores on the processor share access to a 2MB L3 cache. The two cores are also the same size at 285mm2. Ultimately, Toliman is just an Agena core with one core disabled. In at least some cases, this is done as a means of isolating one defective core from three good ones. This lets AMD improve yields, and it also let's the company push its Barcelona architecture into lower price points and thereby sell more processors.

The table below gives a general overview of AMD's Phenom product line, and a close look at it provides some useful clues about AMD's product strategy.

Processor	Cores	Frequency (MHz)	TDP (W)	Price	$ per core
Phenom X4 9850	4	2500	125	$235	$58.75
Phenom X4 9750	4	2400	125	$215	$53.75
Phenom X4 9550	4	2200	95	$209	$52.25
Phenom X3 8750	3	2400	95	$195	$65.00
Phenom X3 8650	3	2300	95	$165	$55
Phenom X3 8450	3	2100	95	$145	$48.33

AMD's current Agena pricing suggests that the company is pricing Phenom X4 at approximately $55 per core. Core price is in line with clockspeed; the X4 9850 is clocked 13.6 percent faster than the 9550, and costs 12.4 percent more. Phenom X3 prices, on the other hand, show considerable variance. The X3 8650 still matches our $55 per-core average, but the X3 8750 is ~18 percent more expensive, at $65, while the X3 8450 is about 14 percent cheaper.

In order to prove itself a viable part, Toliman must demonstrate that its third core can effectively compensate for both the Core 2 Duo's higher efficiency and its higher clockspeed. This is by no means a sure thing, but it's no exaggeration to say that AMD desperately needs its triple-core products to gain real traction in the market. Intel's price cuts last year forced Athlon 64 X2 prices to well under the $100 mark, and AMD's fastest 65nm part, the Athlon 64 X2 5200+, currently lists at Newegg for just $115. The company has already announced that it plans to lay off 10 percent of its workforce in response to a weaker-than-expected first quarter, but cost-cutting can only take a company so far. To attain profitability, AMD needs a presence in the $125+ processor segment, and it has chosen Toliman to carry that banner. Let's see if the processor is up to the task.

Conclusion

It's hard to put a definitive label on AMD's triple-core Toliman. The Phenom X3 series re-establishes AMD's presence in the $150-$200 price point, and the company's decision to fight Intel's dual cores with three of its own is not without merit. Although incapable of sweeping the E6850 in our multi-threaded test scenarios, the X3 8750 won several benchmarks and came within six percent of its dual-core rival in our Lightwave rendering test.

The fact that the E6850 managed to remain competitive, despite being one core short, highlights the 8750's greatest flaw. At just 2.4GHz, the X3 can't reliably best its competition, while the current 2.5GHz ceiling on Phenom X4 precludes the possibility of higher clockspeeds. AMD will eventually release faster Phenom processors, but the company isn't even talking about the 2.8GHz-3GHz speeds it once featured prominently on its Phenom roadmap. According to its roadmaps from last February, we won't see a 2.6GHz X4 or a >2.4GHz X3 until the third quarter of this year. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, particularly if it means AMD has pulled resources away from Phenom to concentrate on its upcoming 45nm Shanghai, but it constrains the CPU manufacturer's ability to adjust its product mixture in the here-and-now.

If you're interested in a triple-core processor, the X3 8650 is probably the best option on the market at this time. The 8750 may be the fastest of the series, but it's actually the worst value in terms of its cost-per-core—just $20 more buys you the X4 9750 at the same clockspeed.

Taken as a whole, the X3 series should bolster both AMD's product positioning and its bottom line. It's not the product that it could be, but its good enough to help the company along towards 45nm, and right now, that's about the best we're going to see. All reports indicate that Shanghai development is going well, but AMD isn't out of the woods just yet.

The Good

• Re-establishes AMD as a competitor in the $150+ market.
• Strong multi-threaded performance in certain tests compared to dual-core alternatives.

The Bad

• When I said "certain" tests, I meant it—triple-core products are not a guaranteed win over Intel's Core 2 Duo
• Pricing on certain models make them a bad deal.

The Ugly

• X3 products would be far more compelling if Phenom could actually scale.
• Still a stopgap measure; Shanghai is the ultimate example of having one's eggs in a single basket.