Phenom II X2 550 will be the 3.1GHz dual core Phenom II. This is a harvested version of Deneb quad-core, that will have two cores disabled and we’ve learned that it should launch in June, and Computex might be a good time.

This dual-core can achieve very high performance as it will have 7MB of total cache or 2x512KB L2 and massive 6MB of L3 and this one should give Intel’s Core 2 series a big headache especially with its price / performance ratio.
Phenom II X2 550 clocked at 3.1GHz and Phenom II X2 545 clocked at 3.0GHz have the same TDP of 80W. With AMD’s current pricing, we would not be surprised to see these CPUs priced around the €100 mark.

AMDs Taylor said the Phenom II demos conducted Thursday were done on what the chip maker is calling its “Dragon” platform — a quad-core Phenom II processor, ATI Radeon 4800 series discrete graphics and an AMD 790 chipset. Taylor said the processors shown were not hand-picked engineering parts, though he added, “But clearly they werent duds.”

“Its about high-speed path optimizations, how it does memory pre-fetch, how it does branch predictions, the larger cache. So youve got higher clock frequency per TDP, but at the same thermals,” he said.

“The result has been modest improvements on instruction per clock but much better clock frequency. Itll be the biggest step in processor improvement between generations that AMD has ever made, with the exception of leading the industry from single to dual-core.”

So who said the clockspeed battles are over? Over the past few years, weve heard quite a lot about how its not as important on multicore chips. But now that both Intel and AMD are really hitting their stride on successive generations of quad-core architectures, the new chips are coming out of the gate pretty darn fast.

Intel is hitting first with what it calls the “fastest processor on the planet” (with a lot of shared enthusiasm from reviewers, we should add) and the new Core i7 parts are, without a doubt, a major step-up in performance over the older Core 2 Quad chips. But AMD might just be about to drop some surprisingly powerful processors on the market as well.

“Phenom II is a big step up, too, but you dont have to open your wallet as wide to make that step up,” Taylor said.
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AMD plans to release its biggest-performance triple-core Phenom yet, with the introduction of the Phenom X3 8850 model. The new CPU will be manufactured on a 65nm process technology, as AMD is yet to unveil its very first 45nm-built Phenom CPU. The upcoming processor will be designed to support AM2+ platforms, and will come with a 2.5GHz core speed. Other technical details include a TDP level of 95W and 2MB of L3 cache.

The Phenom X3 8850 will become the first triple-core Phenom processor to be part of the company’s Black Edition series. The X3 8850 will obviously have an unlocked multiplier, which means it stands great chances of soon becoming a favorite product with overclocking enthusiasts. Unfortunately, there is no word yet on pricing for it.