Let's quash a few of the rumours, and set things straight. First up, the 3000+ is a Clawhammer core running at 1.8GHz with 1MB cache. Who would have thought AMD would have taken such a radical step?

The more interesting bit is the pricing. The current Athlon64 3200+ can be found for about $400 – give or take a few. This new chip will be a little more than half that when it debuts, most likely on December 15, but that could still change by a few days. Look for the price to be less than $225 once the newness factor wears off. While this release is probably too late to affect Christmas sales much, it bodes well for 64 bit chip pricing in the new year.

Read more: The Inquirer.