The folks over at X-bit labs are running a story that suggests AMD might launch their first 45nm processors on the 8th of January 2009, that being the first day of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

 

AMD's 45nm processor will be based on the long-awaited Deneb core and it is expected by sources close to AMD that the first batch of processors to come out will be the Phenom X4 quad-core chips clocked at 2.80GHz and 3.00GHz.

 

The report mentioned that the Deneb core will finally introduce the AM3 socket which brings DDR3 memory support to the AMD processor platform but initially it is expected that the first run of processors will be launching using the AM2+ socket which means DDR2 at first.

 

Surprisingly, but the 45nm process technology will not allow AMD to reduce power consumption of its quad-core AMD Phenom X4 process considerably and the new chips are projected to have 125W thermal design power (TDP), inline with today's higher-end Phenom X4 chips. Still, the new microprocessors will definitely have better performance-per-watt ratio compared to predecessors.

 

Earlier this year AMD said that code-named Shanghai and Deneb microprocessors, which are based on the improved K10 micro-architecture, will be able to offer higher instructions per clock (IPC) throughput compared to currently available AMD Phenom and AMD Opteron processors, which should transform into higher overall performance per clock. Thanks to higher IPC and larger level-three cache (6MB instead of 2MB), the new processors are likely to offer considerably higher speed than existing quad-core chips by AMD.

 

You can find more information over here.