THe news of the week on the CPU front line is definitely the arrival of new triple-core CPUs from AMD. There is an obvious wish to take the marketing and technical lead again on a ground where Intel was starting to appear as the unchallenged leader. But there is also an interesting technico-industrial approach.
When you manufacture a quad-core CPU, it is quite common to find on that it not working properly during the tests. So, what do you do with this slice of non-functional silicon that you cannot sell as a quad-core CPU? A triple-core CPU! Instead of loosing the silicon slab that they wanted to sell to the highest bidder, they can sell it for a definitely lower price while grabbing a lot of media attention. It puts AMD on the fast track again!