AMD is reportedly getting ready to add a couple more Athlon II X3 processors to its lineup, the Athlon II X3 445 and Athlon II X3 450. The latter is slated for a launch in the third quarter of this year, according to Fudzilla, which quotes a clock speed of 3.2GHz and a 95W power envelope. The chip will be based on the 45nm "Rana" core, meaning there will be 1.5MB of shared L2 cache and support for DDR3 RAM 1333 MHz, but no L3 cache at all.
The Athlon II X3 445 will feature a similar architecture and at 3.1GHz should provide a small performance bump over today's triple-core flagship, the X3 440. Prior reports also suggest AMD is readying a quad-core Athlon II X4 640, presumably with a 3GHz clock speed, and a 45W part clocked at 2.5GHz known as the Athlon II X3 415e. Unfortunately, the exact launch dates and prices for these chips have yet to be announced.
