With all this hoo-har about Intel's new CPUs, let's not forget the much needed competition from AMD. Its new 45nm CPUs, codenamed Deneb, are due in January or February on the desktop and Chinese website Expreview has the latest on the new Phenoms.

The first CPUs to arrive, the X4 940 and 920, will be socket AM2+ and DDR2 based and are rumoured to be available from the 8th January at 3.0GHz and 2.8GHz with 6MB of L3 cache - both will be 125W parts. A month later, the rest of the line-up will arrive with complete support for DDR3 - all will be 95W parts and will have a CPU frequencies ranging from 2.5 to 2.8GHz. A 3.0GHz part will follow in Q2.

These DDR3 parts will be differentiated with a - five for the two identical frequency/cache size models, but it gets somewhat confusing for lower specced parts as they don't continue this naming trend, and smaller 4MB cache parts are also changed as they get called 8xx rather than 9xx. The triple core X3 CPUs with the "Heka" die, will be known as 720 and 710 and thankfully the "20" and "10" equate to the same frequency as the X4 parts.

It's hard not to insinuate that AMD has labelled its parts to appear to match Intel's new Core i7's in terms of 940 and 920, which will get ample coverage on launch, but that's as far as it goes as new AM3 parts offer little correlation. Is this confusing for new customers? Most likely. Why can't anyone keep an understandable naming or numbering scheme these days?


On the positive side though, 3GHz quad cores from AMD! Woohoo! And apparently these will also be able to do 4GHz on air which could make them incredibly attractive options. In fact, since most of us are holding off on that Core i7 purchase since there are only super expensive motherboards and expensive triple-channel DDR3 kits available - comparable options from AMD with normal dual channel DDR3 kits and AMD-based motherboards are often a damn sight cheaper.

Back to AMD boys? January/February should make for some interesting times once again if AMD can become competitive once more. What are you considering for your next upgrade? Let us know in the forums!