While AMD has not announced the beginning of shipments of its central processing units made using 90nm fabrication process, the chipmaker, in fact, started to supply the new products a while ago and the first batch of latest chips has already reached the market.

At least one online store listed in X-bit labs' “Check Prices” section on Thursday started to offer two AMD Athlon 64 microprocessors for Socket 939 infrastructure produced using 90nm process technology with SOI. The chips that were claimed to be “in stock” for $173 and $208 at press time were rated at 3000+ and 3200+, confirming AMD’s intention to supply relatively affordable processors for infrastructure that was announced months ago.

AMD’s new AMD Athlon 64 3000+ and 3200+ chips function at 1.80GHz and at 2.00GHz respectively, pack in 512KB of L2 cache and feature 1000MHz HyperTransport bus. Some claim that AMD is also shipping 3500+ processor made using 90nm process technology at 2.20GHz. Higher-end processors, such as AMD Athlon 64 3800+ and AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 are still produced using 130nm process technology. Faster speed-bins of AMD64 desktop chips, such as 4000+ and FX-55, that are expected to come out this year are also likely to be made using 130nm fabrication technology.

AMD’s processors made using 90nm fabrication technology have the same Thermal Design Power as their 130nm brethren, around 89W, which allows them to be installed in current mainboards. Typically processors made using thinner process technology consume less power than comparable chips produced using less advanced technology, though, the history knows examples when such pattern is not necessarily correct.

Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices has not officially announced the beginning of 90nm shipments to the desktop segment.

AMD makes processors in its Fab 30 located in Dresden, Germany. 90nm fabrication process with Silicon-on-Insulator technology allows the company to shrink costs of manufacturing and continue to improve performance of its chips in future.