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AMD appears to be gearing up to bring its 45nm desktop processors to market later this year, with the first chip supposedly set to arrive before January 2009. According to DigiTimes, citing their usual sources at motherboard makers, the company’s first step will be to update its 2.4GHz Phenom X4 9750 with a 45nm version of the chip clocked in the 2.4 - 2.7GHz range.

Among the benefits AMD is apparently touting a significant drop in power consumption, from 125W to around 95W, and a boost in L3 cache from 2MB to 6MB. The Phenom X4 9850 and 9950, scheduled for release in June, will also see their 45nm successors arrive before the end of the year, again with three times the L3 cache and a similar drop in power consumption. The 45nm CPUs are reportedly already in EVT testing and barring any major issues they should hit the market by the end of November.