AMD has confirmed that it will be releasing a six core (or hexa-core) CPU in 2010. While it was speculated that this would happen, AMD had not confirmed that such a product existed until yesterday.
The biggest news about the upcoming CPU is that it will be backwards compatible with AM3 and AM2+ motherboards. An AMD spokesperson said that "[they] are all about platform longevity and long-lived upgrade paths," which is a direct attack at Intel who currently has three different socket infrastructures on its desktop computers; all of which are incompatible, according to MaximumPC.com.
The codename for the CPU is Thuban and it will feature 6 cores on a 45nm die and will also include a DDR3 integrated controller. Also expected, but not confirmed, 3MB of L2 and 6MB of L3 cache, will be on board but specifications are subject to change.
Thuban will likely to go head to head with Intel"s i9 line of processors that are expected to have 6 cores and 12 threads (6 coming from hyper threading). But, in this day and age, it"s all about benchmarks and being faster than your competitor. Will AMD over take Intel in CPU speed in this upcoming generation, no one knows yet, but soon both companies will show the fruits of their labor.