AMD to kill off Phenom X2 and X4 -

The dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn that AMD has pulled the plug on its Phenom X2 and X4 range.

The chips are AMD's budget dual core and quad core workhorses and there are shedloads of them out there. But the problem is that AMD wants people to move to Fusion and Bulldozer parts. To be fair, Fusion and Bulldozer based chips are going to be popular and few people are going to want the X2 and X4s anyway.

At an entry level, having Fusion chips means that you do not have to splash out on a cheap discrete GPU, although we would suspect that many people would do so anyway.The X4 chips are more expensive anyway and really have been outclassed by Fusion.

The rumour has yet to be confirmed by AMD, or even "leaked" to the media. However it all makes perfect sense.

If you have a cheap integrated GPU/ CPU solution for the great unwashed, you are not likely to want to use your production capability to build chips designed several years ago. Besides you do not want to get stuck with shedloads of outdated chips rotting in a warehouse when no one wants them.

AMD is known to be preparing its dual core APU's by the end of the year and wants to replace sempron with the E2 chip as soon as possible.

Anyway the rumour which appears to have been started by Kitguru, is that AMD has stopped production of the chips completely and is relying on its inventory to handle the limited demand. Kitguru points out AMD might have just temporarily stopped production while it concentrates its limited production capacity in getting enough of its Fusion chips to market. However, once you have stopped production, you would really need a good reason to start again. So far no one can think of a reason to restart the X2 and X4s.