AMD have officially launched their new AMD Phenom II X6 processor, the hexacore chip we’ve heard rumors regarding for several months now, together with the new AMD 890FX chipset to go along with it. While the new CPUs aren’t quite fast enough to take the speed crown away from Intel’s Core i7 chips, AMD do hold the value card: the flagship AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition processor, for instance, is a 3.2GHz bargain at $285.
As we heard before, the Phenom II X6 chips come with Turbo CORE support, AMD’s version of Intel Turbo Boost. Unlike the Intel system, Turbo CORE is less intelligent in how it overclocks the CPUs, but the end result is similar: an extra burst of speed when you most need it. The new processors are also backward-compatible with existing AM3 and AM2+ socket motherboards, making for reasonably straightforward upgrades.
Alternatively, AMD reckon you can buy all the parts for a completely new, Phenom II X6 based PC for less than what you’d spend on Intel’s $999 hexacore Core i7-980X. As for the 890FX chipset, that supports up to four ATI Radeon HD graphics cards in CrossFireX setup, together with EyeFinity multiple displays. There’s also SATA 6Gb/s, gigabit ethernet, HyperTransport 3.0 technology and PCI Express Generation 2.0 support.