After Deneb and Propus 45nm K10.5 Quad-cores AMD plans to change the process and improve the existing K10.5 cores. The new process is called 45nm K10.5 Rev. D and it will bring high K to 45nm SOI cores. K10.5 Rev. C is the 45nm SOI process that AMD plans to use for Deneb and Propus 45nm cores. AMD calls Rev D cores Hydra and these are the chips that will really go against Nehalem.
The test production of these rather interesting cores will start in Q1 2009, but we expect to see the production cores by the middle of 2009 or a bit later.
The new K10.5 Rev. D supports 1MB L2 per core, which is twice as much as in current K10 CPUs and 6MB L3 cache memory. The most important feature is that it will be able to get you eight cores and we believe this is eight-core native design and not MCM (Multi Chip Module), as many have suggested before. This confirms our earlier story that AMD’s eight cores are native and you can read it here.
The new chip should be able to hit clocks in excess of 3GHz but we will hold our breath until we see it. This does look positive for AMD, but it still means that Nehalem will probably be the market leader for at least six to nine months before it gets a real competitor.
Intel will do what it does best by then, getting out quick solution. They will slap two quad core chips. Besides all the argument about Native and MultiChip design done to death by fanboys, Intel has already proved that it doesn’t make big difference… at least in current form of available technology. It may make difference as number of cores increase.
Anyway, I’ll hold my judgment till we get to see something in real. No point blowing our brains over rumor talks.
