Monday we reported the news that AMD was releasing its six core Opterton processors to the market in the near future, showcasing the first production of units beyond the current 4-core limitation.

This was not big news to many though, as Opteron CPU’s are geared solely for the server and business markets, and not intended for regular desktop use. However, news across the wire at X-bit labs, citing unnamed sources, is claiming that consumers could see the release of six-core desktop processors from AMD – codenamed “Thuban” – on the market as early as next year.

The rumour states that the hardware will continue to operate on the AM3 socket, and likely be produced under the Phenom title making it easy for consumers to upgrade and differentiate between products; a tactic that Intel has yet to grasp. The chips will be similar to what is currently seen in quad-core AMD AM3 CPU’s, with an onboard dual channel DDR3 memory controller, 512KB per core L2 cache plus 6MB L3 cache for 9MB total and it will likely continue to use the 45nm manufacturing process.

The sources also allude to the fact that the release of these six core monsters may likely coincide with the development of a next gen AMD Leo chipset which is in development to produce the 890FX & 890GX chipsets; it is likely consumers will not see any of this hardware until the third quarter of 2010.

Intel has not been sitting by idley either. Their roadmap includes the production of a 6-core desktop processor – codenamed “Gulftown” -  slated for Q2 2010 . These processors are a part of the 32nm path that Intel has rumoured to be hard at work on.

Source: X-bit Labs