It's common knowledge that Intel has a hexa-core (six core) desktop processor in the pipeline - namely its 32nm Westmere-derived Gulftown - and we're expecting to see the LGA1366 part on show at this week's Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Fransisco.
What we didn't know, however, is that AMD will soon have itself a competitor. The Sunnyvale, California-based thorn in Intel's side has confirmed this week that it'll release its own hexa-core desktop part in the form of a processor codenamed Thuban.
Although AMD already has a hexa-core Istanbul Opteron available for the server environment, Thuban looks set to become the company's first six-core desktop processor. According to a report by MaximumPC.com, Thuban will feature six cores on a single 45nm die and it's likely to be branded as a Phenom II X6.
In an effort to retain a decent TDP, initial clock speeds are expected to be lower than quad-core Phenom II X4 parts. What's interesting, however, is that Thuban will be backward compatible with AMD's existing AM2+ and AM3 sockets. Each part is expected to feature 3MB of L2 and 6MB of L3 cache.
Trouble is, Intel's Gulftown - a 32nm part - will feature six physical cores with support for hyper-threading, resulting in a further six virtual cores. Furthermore, Gulftown is likely to arrive sooner, and it'll be backward compatible with existing X58 (socket LGA1366) boards.
