AMD - Loaded and Back in Action

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=2&id=2569

Even if their OEM's aren't demanding high-speed processors, as they deal with more mainstream volume movement, AMD's upcoming transition to the 45nm process technology (also often know as the "Stars" core update on the desktop side and "Shanghai" on the server side) is another reason why they can't entirely devote themselves to cranking higher clocked Phenoms. John commented that they've a lot of engineering resources channeled in this area as they are committed to getting it out right and want a clean launch and delivery execution. Of course they are doing more than just transitioning to a 45nm process, as they have some core enhancements, 6MB of L3 cache, supports DDR3-1333 memory and comes in a new AM3 socket packaging (which is fortunately backwards compatible with older platforms like AM2 and AM2+). By AMD's estimation, a 2.6GHz Phenom today, when making the jump to the new 45nm process node, should perform 10 to 20% better. So a 2.6GHz 45nm Phenom later this year would perform about the same as a 2.8GHz Phenom of the current generation. While most of the performance gain is mainly attributed to the enlarged L3 cache (still using the same exclusive caching policy), the gains sound much more than what Intel got when making their transition to 45nm. We'll check these claims when the processor becomes available, but yet another salient point about the transition is that AMD can bring down the wattage further on some of their processors.