14 DAY TRIAL // According to the latest news on the web, Advanced Micro Devices will make its upcoming Phenom II Deneb-based processor available for distributors in the last days of this year. Moreover, it seems that the Phenom II 940 at 3GHz and Phenom II 920 at 2.8GHz will start selling in the week beginning on December 29th.
The Sunnyvale company already announced its plan to launch its Phenom II chips at CES 2009, plus the new processors would become available for purchase starting with the second week of the next year. The chips the company will launch at CES are compatible with AMD's older AM2+ motherboards, a feature meant to help their adoption on the market.
Moreover, the chip manufacturer also plans to release Phenom II 9x5 versions of the Deneb core about a month or so after the initial launch of the new series. These processors, instead, are said to be compatible with the AM3 chipset and to feature support for DDR3. The best feature of these chips is that they will also be compatible with AM2+ motherboards.
It seems that the Phenom II chips are finally turning into reality and they are expected to help AMD regain some of its popularity. As previously stated, the chips bring along a lot of performance capabilities, while also being said to feature smaller prices and better overclocking capabilities than the Intel Nehalem products, their direct competitors.
Unlike the Nehalem-based Core i7 parts, which require a new motherboard, as well as fresh memory modules, AMD's Phenom II CPUs that work with the company's 780FX / GX motherboards will provide a cheaper upgrade option, which should facilitate their penetration of the market. On the overclocking capabilities of the processors, we should note that they have been reported to work at 4.2GHz while cooled on air, and to be able to peak 6.3GHz when cooled with liquid.