AMD has confirmed that it is planning to release a consumer-grade six-core desktop processor next year -- even more, it will be backwards compatible with existing AM2+ and AM3 motherboards. A company spokesman took a jab at Intel, saying AMD is "all about platform longevity and long-lived upgrade paths," unlike its rival, which has an affinity for rolling out new socket specs. The news came just prior to the launch of Intel's IDF event.
Codenamed Thuban, the chip will squeeze all six cores onto a single 45nm die. Thuban is derived from the hexa-core Opteron released earlier this year, and will feature an integrated DDR3 controller. It will likely have lower clock frequencies than AMD's current quad core parts, is expected to house 3MB of L2 and 6MB of L3 cache, and be pushed to market as a Phenom II X6 -- but those tidbits aren't official.
More: http://www.techspot.com/news/36314-amd-confirms-hexacore-desktop-chip-thuban.html
Codenamed Thuban, the chip will squeeze all six cores onto a single 45nm die. Thuban is derived from the hexa-core Opteron released earlier this year, and will feature an integrated DDR3 controller. It will likely have lower clock frequencies than AMD's current quad core parts, is expected to house 3MB of L2 and 6MB of L3 cache, and be pushed to market as a Phenom II X6 -- but those tidbits aren't official.
More: http://www.techspot.com/news/36314-amd-confirms-hexacore-desktop-chip-thuban.html