While the first Zambezi processors based on the Bulldozer architecture won't become available until later this summer, at this year's E3 gaming expo, that is taking place right now in Los Angeles, California, the Sunnyvale-based company showcased to the public a working version of an 8-core FX-series CPU.This is the first time that AMD publicly demonstrates this chip and while the processor is closely guarded by AMD from the eyes of eager enthusiasts, a few pictures of the system and of the company's OverDrive utility managed to make their way online.
The latter is particularly interesting as it reveals that Bulldozer is using some rather advanced power saving technologies that can control the chip at the core level.
This means that each of the four cores can run at a different frequency, depending on the load that the operating system places on it.
Previously, it has been believed, that the chip's frequencies can only be controlled down to the module level, so this is quite an interesting information and should help AMD drop Bulldozer's power consumption to much lower numbers.
During the presentation, it has also been uncovered that AMD plans to ship its 8-core Zambezi FX chips inside a tin can, while the 6 and quad-core chips will get the standard cardboard packaging.
During the same event, AMD also held a conference to present to the world the FX-series Sabine platform.
This is comprised out of the newly released AMD 900-series motherboard logic, the AMD Radeon HD 6000 graphics cards and of the upcoming Zambezi CPU.
These processors were supposed to launch this June, but AMD seems to be having issues with the clock speeds achieved, as reports suggest the chips are too slow to compete with Intel's offerings at this point.
