AMD is reportedly gearing up to deliver a new addition to its Phenom II lineup in an effort to better compete with Intel's Lynnfield and upcoming Clarkdale processors. Dubbed Phenom II X4 975, the chip should come out sometime in the first half of 2010 and deliver a 200MHz speed boost over their current flagship. That would make this a 3.6GHz part probably featuring a 140W thermal envelope as the original X4 965.

AMD could get the Phenom II X4 975 down to 125W with a new stepping of the Deneb silicon further down the road, according to Fudzilla. The new processor is expected to be priced around the $200 mark, where the Phenom II X4 965 currently sits, and will be joined sometime next year by a six-core desktop part compatible with existing AM2+ and AM3 motherboards to compete with the higher-end Core i7s.

Codenamed Thuban, this chip is expected to have lower clock frequencies, house 6MB of L3 cache and feature an integrated DDR3 controller.