14 DAY TRIAL // Even though enthusiasts are known for their tendency to somehow manage to scrape together enough cash for the latest top-end hardware, not all of them manage to reach the $1,000 ($999) needed to buy the currently most powerful CPU on the market, namely Intel's Core i7-980GX. This means that, when they do arrive, AMD's six-core Thuban processors, while boasting lower clocks, will cater to the needs of many budget-conscious overclockers. Unfortunately, this will not happen for a while yet. Still, to make the wait a little sweeter (or more unbearable, depending on each user's personality), US retailers have begun to make some of the parts available for pre-order.
While its performance capabilities are unquestionable, the Intel Gulftown's price and compatibility makes it quite hard to get. Its own price is already high enough to shatter the dreams of many, but it is also compatible with only the rather expensive LGA 1366 motherboards based on the X58 chipset. AMD's chips will have neither of these two drawbacks, which is why they are expected to sell well even in spite of less processing power.
The AMD Phenom II X6 1090T, the more capable of the set, has a frequency of 3.2GHz and, instead of asking for almost a thousand dollars, has a price tag of $353 on Howard Technology Solutions and only $318 on PROVANTAGE. The 1055T, with a clock of 2.8GHz, has also been put up for pre-order on Howard, for $240. Obviously much lower than the $999 asked by Gulftown, these price points will make the new six-core processors more appealing to a wider spectrum of consumers.
These chips won't win the performance grand prize, but they will still hold their own, especially thanks to their implementation of the Turbo Core technology which, similarly to Turbo Boost, overclocks cores and reduces the speeds of others when applications can't take advantage of them all. Actual shipping is, currently, slated to start next month.