According to news from Taiwan, AMD will launch their X2 3600+ this quarter to counter the Core Duo (Conroe) and Pentium D.

As Intel will be lowering its pricing and clearing of its Pentium D, limited quantites of Core Duo will released to the market so that it will not eat into the market share of Pentium D.

The AMD X2 3600+ is expected to be launched on 24 Jul, just in time to fight head on with Pentium D 915/925/945 and Core 2 Duo E4200. This strategy is to slow down Intel's clearance of Pentium D, so that they will have to clear out most of it before they channel large quantities of Core Duo into the market.

The low end E4200 Core 2 Duo is a 1.6GHz／2MB／800MHz FSB CPU and will only be available from Q4 onwards. It wil be priced at 183 USD. Pentium D 925 will be dropped to 133 USD, Pentium D 945 will be at 163 and 915 at 133 USD. from Jul 23 onwards.

AMD released an updated schedule for 65nm production, where AMD Athlon 64 FX, AMD Athlon X2 (Brisbane) and AMD Sempron (BHrisbane) are the only left. Single-core Athlon 64 is going to fade out soon, and therefore AMD would only provide dual core processor for mainstream and performance needs.

Without any change to its macrostructure, the first tier of 65nm product would release at RevG. However, as its BrandID has been increased from 8 bits to 16 bits, new bios is a must for recognition and function enabling. Besides, 65nm Sempron is upgraded to supports DDR2 800 instead of DDR2 667.

According to the schedule, 65nm dual-core Brisbane is planned to release its Prototype in Aug, EVT and early DVT version in Nov., and starting the production in Dec. The products are firstly provided to OEM use and then the open market in 2007 Q1. 4600+ (2.4GHz/512KBx2 L2) and 4200+ (2.2GHz/512KBx2 L2) are the first option for 65nm process, and other would follow soon. For Sempron, EVT and DVT versions have trial production in 2007 Q1, and going to release in 2007 Q2.

Besides, sources indicate that the next generation K8L interface Socket AM3 supports both DDR2 and DDR3, with Hyper-Transport updated to version 3.0, supports up to 5.2GT/s (Giga-Transfer/Second; 2.0GT/s for version 1.0). In addition, Socket AM3 processor has independent clock speed and voltage control for each of the cores and the memory controller to provide a better performance. The most important is Socket AM3 Processor is designed to support Socket AM2 Motheroard with DDR2. Yet Socket AM3 Motherboard is not compatible to Socket AM2 Processor.

Sources indicate that AMD plans to release Athlon 64 X2 3600+ earlier from Q4 to Q3, probably few weeks after the price-cut on July 24. Targeting on Intel Pentium D 945 (3.4GHz/2MB x2 L2/800MHz FSB/No VT), Pentium D 915 (2.8GHz/2MB x2 L2/800MHz FSB/No VT), and the upcoming Core 2 Duo E4200 (1.6GHz/2MB/800MHz) and Pentium D 925(3.0GHz/2MB x2 L2/800MHz FSB), X2 3600+ is expected to priced in $130~149.

As we reported before, AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ is a cheaper version of 3800+, both clocked at 2GHz, but halved the L2 Cache to 256KB x2. According to the internal test from manufacturers, 3600+ is a little bit weaker than Pentium D 945, similar to Core 2 E4200, but faster than Pentium D 925/915. It will be a big obstacle to clear up Pentium D if 3600+ got a right price.

Besides, to avoid self competing with Conroe, Intel has to sell the stored Pentium D as soon as possible. Therefore, Conroe is set at a less competitive price. The appear of AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ would definitely lower the speed of clearing old Pentium D, helping AMD to fight the battle until Fab 36 and 3rd party manufacturing in Singapore be ready.

Figure below is a AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600 Socket AM2 version with OPN Code AD03600IAA4CU, where ADO stands for 65W TDP, 3600 for the model name, I for Socket AM2, AA for Variable V_Core and Variable T_Case, and 4CU for 512KB L2 (256KB x2) Stepping F4.