Although AMD and Intel both plan to launch their six-core desktop processors only in Q2 2010, it doesn’t mean that you can’t put together a six-core desktop system today if you want to. AMD has been offering Opteron processors with six cores from Istanbul family for about 6 months already. The existing six-core Opteron processors work at relatively low clock frequencies, and Socket F mainboards only work with inconvenient and not very fast Registered DDR2 memory. Nevertheless, it seems to make certain sense. An Opteron 2435 processor working at only 2.6 GHz turns out to be more attractive in a number of applications than the top Phenom II X4 CPU. Among applications like that I could mention programs for media content creation and processing, CAD and 3D modeling applications, etc., which are well optimized for multi-threading. And it is especially pleasing that Opteron not just outperforms Phenom II X4 965, but is also a more energy-efficient solution.

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