Advanced Micro Devices is set to release its AMD Athlon 64 3400+ processor by holiday season, an unofficial source with some knowledge of the company’s plans told X-bit labs on Sunday.

As a result of the announcement that will presumably happen next month, AMD’s Athlon 64 lineup will catch up with the Athlon 64 FX-51 processor in terms of clock-speed. Its performance is still to be confirmed, however, as the FX-family of microprocessors from AMD have one tangible improvement over the ordinary Athlon 64 chips – the dual-channel memory controller.

AMD Athlon 64 processor in Socket 754 form-factor designed for performance-mainstream and high-end desktop computers sports 128KB of L1, 1MB of L2 and single-channel PC3200 memory controller. The Athlon 64 FX has dual-channel memory controller and is able to pump in more data at once, eliminating a system bottleneck.

Currently AMD ships Athlon 64 processors clocked at 1.80GHz and 2.00GHz for desktop or desktop replacement notebooks. The only available AMD Athlon FX – the FX-51 chip – functions at 2.20GHz, even a bit faster than its “non-FX” brethren.

Since both the “FX” and “ordinary” 64-bit desktop microprocessors from AMD are ramped up at the company’s Fab 30 in Dresden, Germany, using the 0.13 micron SOI technology process, 2.20GHz is not really a milestone for AMD and its Athlon 64 CPUs next month. Keeping this in mind, we may expect AMD to be in a position to supply enough Athlon 64 processors rated at 3400+ for holidays later this year.

AMD is not very likely to exceed the 2.20GHz point with its Athlon 64 3400+ chip. Though, officials at AMD indicated earlier this year that the company acts according to the market requirements and may change some specifications in order to boost the performance.

As a rule, X-bit labs does not enquire for comments from official representatives at weekends, in early mornings or late afternoons. We remind our readers that all roadmaps and plans reported are subject to change without notice.