Deneb debuts in December
A SCREENIE PLONKED on the Expreview website is showing a new Chimpzilla roadmap all the way up to the far-away second quarter of 2009, which is about as far as the company can divine, we guess.
With this roadmap, AMD introduces a new naming scheme for the future Phenom CPUs, in both X4 and X3 flavours. The scheme will bless Phenoms with a five-digit code which, at least, will help tell apart different generations (unlike what clever Chimpzilla did in the past). Speeds on the new Phenoms span the 2.4-3GHz window.
AM3 Phenoms are lacking the rating numeral, but they'll be easy to spot down the line. The AM2+ Phenoms, on the other hand, already have names: the Phenom X4 20550 and Phenom X4 20350, and look like a sequel to the current 9950 BE. These will feature DDR2-1066 memory controllers but if the roadmap is right, they are Deneb cores. Reports say AMD is also advising mobo makers not to try and run the 45nm Phenoms on current mobo designs. So no cookie for upgraders, if that proves true.
Overall TDP comes down a bit from the current Agena-based Phenoms, from 140W to 125W. The Propus cores put out just 95W but the most interesting in the lot is the 2.6GHz Deneb which also keeps with that thermal envelope.
The entire range of new processors will feature HT3.0 and 4GHz HT Link, just like the current high-end Phenoms.
The total cache listed on the roadmap looks like L2+L3 (ie: 512KB/core on an X4 20550, plus the 6MB L3 cache). We can’t figure out why there’s a 3MB Propus core in there, but it could be a typo.
It doesn’t look like AMD will take the fight to Intel just yet, and with a socket transition in the mess, might be slow to catch up. Although the die shrink implies better power specs, bigger caches and a faster interconnect, it also implies making new boards and dumping the old ones to make room for this 'high-end'. No sign of the Holy Grail 'Deneb FX' core yet, and AMD really needs a pick-me-up.
We're waiting for AMD to pick up the dang phone and back this up with some smooth PR. µ
L'Inq
Expreview
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Remembering when AMD twatishly killed off 939 prematurely I see the same thing happening again with AM2 / AM3.

If somebody needs a new mobo to run mostly sub 45nm 3GHz chips it doesn't need much thought to go 32nm 3GHz+ Intel instead.
If I can't drop a 45nm x4 on my relatively new AM2+ 790FX mobo I am going to be extremely dissapointed.
" Reports say AMD is also advising mobo makers not to try and run the 45nm Phenoms on current mobo designs. So no cookie for upgraders, if that proves true."

Are you for real?!? Current mobo designs ARE AM2+ and the 45nm Phenoms are,wait for it, AM2+!!! So AMD is not advising the mobo makers to support AM2+ CPU on the dual power plane AM2+ boards? Yeah right.

Try to be less clueless next time please.
Ktnxbye.
"Reports say AMD is also advising mobo makers not to try and run the 45nm Phenoms on current mobo designs."

Thanks for that juicy little bit. Of course, that's why I'm a regular reader and certainly not for Nick's political commentary. However, it's just the opposite of what the Expreview article says and what AMD has been saying all along about backward compatibility. Given the wording, it seems as if it might involve more than just a BIOS revision. It seems unlikely that any board maker would bother with a hardware revision for a processor which will be available for only one quarter. It seems hard to believe AMD would create a further incompatibility between an AM2+ processor and AM2/AM2+ motherboards after they have already done so by selling 140W TDP processors which are not supported by many AM2/AM2+ boards. If it does turn out to be a hardware issue then they must be smoking the same brand of hash they used to smoke over at Intel. AM3 is where the focus is going to be in 2009 if the board mfrs don't give up on AMD completely? As it is, there are only two 790FX boards out now upgraded with the SB750 with no others on the horizon and a small handful of 790GX boards. There could be a lot of customers feeling burnt who bought into AM2/AM2+ believing there would be an upgrade path when AMD finally got 45nm processors out.
That's ludicrous. What are they going to do, introduce another intermediate socket between AM2+ and AM3+? What will they call it, AM2++?

Not too long ago, AMD was bragging that AM2+ was capable of scaling to 6 cores. What happened? I had hoped that the new CEO would lead AMD away from the era of broken promises and bad marketing...

I'm really hoping your reporting here is wrong.
Relax for gods sakes, they most likely WILL work on your mobo's, it's just a matter of a "Supports Phenom 45nm" symbol thing. There will, as always, be cases that don't work as they should, and that's why AMD are coming out with this.
Funny, that's what finally turned me off to AMD to begin with. After having to upgrade my motherboard 3 times for the 3 processors that I bought to upgrade my computer, I finally got hacked off. This has always been there Achilles heel... And NVIDIA seems to have jumped on the bandwagon with their Nfoce chips. I'm steadily loosing faith in both of these companies. I know the world doesn't need Intel as a monopoly, but how about some actual competition on the technical front?
This is not an accurate reporting of old news. The facts are. You will not be able to use any of the next Gen chips if your MoBo doesn't already support the likes of a 9850 BE. It's not the socket, it's the power planes. Now the last rumor I heard was that you will also be able to drop an AM3 chip into the Dual plane AM2+ Mobos But not Visa Versa. I hope thats accurate....because I'm set in that case (Thank You GA-MA790FX-DQ6!!!).
Dear The Inq, please can you put an update at the bottom of the article to indicate which socket info is correct.

Will AM2+ newer mobos work with the 2009 CPU's or not?