AMD Roadmap: two 45nm CPUs in November

According to Digitimes, AMD should release two X4 45nm Phenoms (the Deneb, the second generation of processors in the "Stars" family) this year. You may recall they will have an L2 cache of 512 KB per core and a shared L3 cache as high as 6 MB. They will still fit in the AM2+ Socket and therefore have DDR2 support. In terms of frequencies, it's still very unclear as it is a question of 2.5 GHz to 2.8 GHz for the first and 2.4 GHz to 2.7 GHz for the second. In short, it’s currently impossible to say if they will go further than the Phenom 9850 Black Edition and its 2.5 GHz. On the other hand, TDP will be "only" 95W versus 125W for AMD’s current high end.

The Phenom X4 9750 125W should disappear in a few months from now and only the 95W version will remain. Either way, a Phenom X4 9850 95W is expected out before January as well as a reviewed version of the Phenom X4 9950. A little lower down the line, there will be a Phenom X3 8550 (2.2 GHz) in the third quarter and other triple core CPUs in the fourth.

The Energy Efficient line wasn't forgotten and the production of the Phenom X3 8450e will start in the second quarter, that of the X4 9350e in the third. It’s also in this period that the X4 9150e, which was initially expected out before the end of June, will arrive. In the first half of 2009, a low power X4 45nm Phenom stripped of L3 cache (the Propus) should be launched.

Finally, we learn that 45nm CPUs are currently in EVT (engineering validation test) phase and that motherboard manufacturers should receive samples in August or September. If everything goes well, the first samples will arrive on the market at the end of November.