AMD Thuban hexa-core processors

AMD is going to roll out hexa-core processors to consumer computers, otherwise known as the Thuban. In addition, these uber-fast processors will be backwards compatible with current AM3 and AM2+ motherboards, making us wonder whether this could dent Intel’s bottom line somewhat, although it isn’t too likely that AMD’s latest effort will see them take the lead in the world of computer processors anytime soon. All half dozen cores will be placed on a single 45nm die, and while clock speeds will probably not measure up to current quad-core processors, it will come with 3MB of L2 and 6MB of L3 cache. The Thuban will go up against Intel’s “Gulftown” (probably Core i9) when the latter makes its debuts in 2010. Nice thing about the backwards compatiblity since you won’t need to fork out additional dough for an upgrade.