Today AMD announced that the first of their Bulldozer chips, the server targeted Interlagos, has begun shipping to OEMs and retailers with a targeted availability of October. AMD claims that Interlagos is the world’s first 16-core x86 processor.

While AMD’s press release claims that Interlagos is a 16-core processor, the reality is this is claim airs on the side of PR-sophistry. Interlagos has 8 Bullzoder modules: a module contains two independent integer processors, but only one FPU as well as shared fetch/decode/execute units. In the traditional sense each module has more than one core, but it isn’t quite the two as advertised.

“This is a monumental moment for the industry as this first ‘Bulldozer’ core represents the beginning of unprecedented performance scaling for x86 CPUs,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, AMD Products Group in a press release.

“The flexible new ‘Bulldozer’ architecture will give Web and datacenter customers the scalability they need to handle emerging cloud and virtualization workloads.”

Berman had no answers, however, about the fate of Bulldozer’s desktop iteration, the 8 core Zambezi CPU. Semi-confirmed rumors have it that Zambezi cannot reach a clockspeed that would make it competitive with Intel’s Core i7 chips.

X-bit labs claims that AMD has cancelled its Komodo and Corona products in favor of focusing on Vishera desktop chips next year, Zambezi’s successor.