Bulldozer successor ‘Piledriver’ to launch late 2012, providing no delays…

Bulldozer was plagued by delays, taking nearly 6 months longer than schedule to finally launch. But AMD remains positive, it claims the Bulldozer’s successor known as ‘Piledriver’ or ‘enhanced Bulldozer’ will be able to launch in Q3 of 2012. This comes from AMD’s partners who have been specifically told by AMD that Q3 of 2012 will hold the release date. Although some are seeing issues with this already as typically AMD send processors to market 2 quarters after disclosing engineering samples. Piledriver engineering samples are scheduled for Q2 of 2012 so in reality we should expect to see the Piledriver processor arrive in Q4 of 2012 (or very late Q3 at the earliest).

Piledriver is part of the same ‘Volan’ AM3+ platform as Bulldozer, featuring the same chipsets: AMD 990FX northbridge and SB950 southbridge. The difference should be 10-15% improved performance on Piledriver compared to Bulldozer. But by the time Piledriver hits the market Intel will have released the 22nm Ivy Bridge platform so AMD will (as usual) be behind and competing on value for money not performance.

Source: Fudzilla