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Why is AMD changing the name of its high-end desktop processor line from Athlon to Phenom? It’s a metaphor for the company's expectations for the chips, due out later this year. AMD is aiming for its Phenom to be just that; a marvel of performance and unit sales, representing a turn-around for the company.
Thus it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that AMD is launching a new brand name for its forthcoming high-end desktop chip. First, the Phenom, as it will now be known, represents a major change in processor design in that it’s based on the same circuitry as AMD’s forthcoming quad-core Barcelona Opteron chip. It will come in both dual and quad-core configurations.
Despite being very well known, the Athlon name has come to be associated with price-performance. The emphasis there, lately, has been on price. Phenom just sounds like it should cost more. And it will. That’s a good thing, financially, for AMD. If Phenoms perform as well as the company says they will, customers will pay premium prices for them. Meanwhile, AMD is left with a strong brand name in Athlon to compete with Intel’s low-end Pentium and Celeron processors in lower-priced PCs.
