AMD Debuts New Chip Design

AMD on Tuesday announced new desktop processor designs that it says would provide a slight boost to speed, as well as support for DDR2 memory and virtualization. While the new memory is not expected to offer much improvement, the change in architecture is said to be necessary for the future, as AMD and the industry in general turns to multi-core processors.

The first two processors will be the Athlon 64 FX-62, now AMD's best performing desktop chip, and the Athlon 64 X2 5000+, the company's top of the line mainstream CPU. Costs of the processor are $1,031 per 1,000 for the FX-62, and $696 for the X2 5000+. The move is seen as a preemptive strike against Intel, which is widely expected to release its "Conroe" chips later this year. Intel has said the Conroe chip would be a significant improvement over its current architecture.