14 DAY TRIAL // By now, end-users must well know that it won't be long until Advanced Micro Devices starts selling its very own six-core central processing units, codenamed Thuban. In fact, AMD is expected to land quite a few sales, considering that, unlike Intel, is has models prepared to address not just the high-end, but also the mainstream market. Naturally, this means that consumers are eager to buy them. The second effect, it seems, is that retailers have a tendency to jump the gun and start selling the parts ahead of launch.
Retailers setting up a certain component for pre-order is not unheard of. In fact, this practice is quite common, as it allows said vendor to score some sales at higher prices than the ones at launch. However, in this case, something quite different has occurred, namely that a Norwegian retailer has actually started shipping some AMD Phenom II X6 models to its customers.
The retailer in question is known as Amentio.no. At present, it has only the Phenom II X6 1055T and the high-end 1090T Black Edition up for order, but their prices seem to be more than just convenient. The roughly hundred 1055T chips that the retailer has in stock are priced at only €197, which is very low for hexacore parts, at least compared to Intel's $999 Gulftown. The price becomes even more enthralling when considering that a frequency of 2.8GHz is quite reasonable, especially since it can go up by 500MHz with Turbo Core.
The 1090T Black Edition is, as consumers know, the higher-end processor, with a clock of no less than 3.2GHz. Multiplied by six, and boostable via the same Turbo Core technology, this processing power seems to get somewhat close to what Intel's enthusiast CPU can do. Its price, however, is remarkably lower, at only €288. Unfortunately, since AMD will likely ask the supplier to pull the Thubans, eager end-users will need to make haste in placing the orders now when they have the chance.