wodmarach: aaaand necroing to say thepre release prices have just hit

cjrgreen: Not to throw too soggy a wet blanket on the anticipation, but "Llano" is just a refreshed K10 (Phenom II) with an integrated GPU. The GPU is no added value to gamers, but it should be good value in the low-to-mid desktop market.

The "Bulldozer" models are the interesting ones. There are three different "Bulldozer" lines: two of them are server CPUs (which is a huge market for AMD); the third one, "Zambezi", is the desktop (Socket AM3+) line.

Bulldozer cores are paired, but are closer to real cores than to Intel-style hyperthreading bogocores, since they have separate integer and scheduling units.

We have only rumors of what Bulldozer can do so far, but the rumors have the 8-core models superior to Core i7-2600K and competitive with Core i7-980X.

Some, but probably only a few, Socket AM3 motherboards will be able to take Bulldozer CPUs. ASUS is already claiming compatibility for the Crosshair IV, M4A89TD, and M4A89GTD models. MSI also has a few models that may be made compatible. Gigabyte isn't going that way.

The rest of us will probably want new motherboards anyway, since the Bulldozers have intricate power requirements that most Socket AM3 designs just cannot meet.

cjrgreen: The "single FPU" is a horse of two different colors: apparently it runs as two independent 128-bit FPUs but for some instructions consolidates into a single 256-bit FPU. The only instructions requiring a 256-bit FPU are AVX, which Intel introduced in Sandy Bridge.