Deneb debuts in December

AMD Roadmappery all the way along to distant Q2 '09.

A screenshot that showed up on the Expreview website is showing a new AMD roadmap all the way up to the far-away second quarter of 2009, which is about as far as the company can divine, we guess.

With this roadmap, AMD introduces a new naming scheme for the future Phenom CPUs, in both X4 and X3 flavours. The scheme will bless Phenoms with a five-digit code which, at least, will help tell apart different generations (unlike what the company did in the past). Speeds on the new Phenoms span the 2.4-3GHz window.

AM3 Phenoms are lacking the rating numeral, but they'll be easy to spot down the line. The AM2+ Phenoms, on the other hand, already have names: the Phenom X4 20550 and Phenom X4 20350, and look like a sequel to the current 9950 BE. These will feature DDR2-1066 memory controllers but if the roadmap is right, they are Deneb cores. Reports say AMD is also advising mobo makers not to try and run the 45nm Phenoms on current mobo designs. So no cookie for upgraders, if that proves true.

Overall TDP comes down a bit from the current Agena-based Phenoms, from 140W to 125W. The Propus cores put out just 95W but the most interesting in the lot is the 2.6GHz Deneb which also keeps with that thermal envelope.

The entire range of new processors will feature HT3.0 and 4GHz HT Link, just like the current high-end Phenoms.

The total cache listed on the roadmap looks like L2+L3 (ie: 512KB/core on an X4 20550, plus the 6MB L3 cache). We can’t figure out why there’s a 3MB Propus core in there, but it could be a typo.

It doesn’t look like AMD will take the fight to Intel just yet, and with a socket transition in the mess, might be slow to catch up. Although the die shrink implies better power specs, bigger caches and a faster interconnect, it also implies making new boards and dumping the old ones to make room for this 'high-end'. No sign of the Holy Grail 'Deneb FX' core yet, and AMD really needs a pick-me-up.

We're waiting for AMD to pick up the dang phone and back this up with some smooth PR.