The existence of engineering models only proves the proximity of announcement, and even motherboard producers have already promulgated the characteristics of their products with socket AM3. Does this indicate that we will see the finished platforms class socket AM3 on sale already in the second-half of February?
If it was previously considered that the processor phenom II X4 925 (2.8 GHz) will be presented during February, and in the second quarter to it will be joined with Phenom II X4 945 (3.0 GHz) and Phenom II X4 950 (3.1 GHz), then now AMD is assembled to present on 9 February only limited assortment of socket AM3 processors.
We will see only five 45 NM processors models socket AM3:
- Phenom II X4 910 (2.6 GHz) - > only OEM;
- Phenom II X4 810 (2.6 GHz) - > price less than $180;
- Phenom II X4 805 (2.5 GHz) - > only OEM;
- Phenom II X3 720 Black edition (2.8 GHz) - > price less than $150;
- Phenom II X3 710 (2.6 GHz) - > price is less than $130.
Actually, during February on retail will enter only three processors socket AM3. Moreover, two of them will be three-core, and the third will combine four cores with the cache volume in the third level reduced to 4 Mb.
Problem consists that AMD and its partners cannot fix the delivery of motherboard socket AM3 up to February . Socket AM3 processors can work also in socket AM2+ motherboard, but under such conditions they cannot open their advantages : support to DDR3 memory and higher overclocking potential. For this reason the entire advantage of the new AMD platform will appear later.