Advanced Micro Devices on Tuesday unveiled its microprocessors for desktops that support faster memory and virtualization technology. In addition, there are three new high-performance dual-core processors in the company’s list of offerings, which once again adds muscle to desktop AMD64 central processing units.

“The introduction of socket AM2 is another example of AMD delivering on our customer promise, on time and with industry support from our AMD64 ecosystem. We are again pushing new levels of performance in our dual-core processors while enabling meaningful innovations like AMD Virtualization and DDR2 memory,” said Bob Brewer, corporate vice president, Desktop Division, AMD.

AMD Athlon 64 dual-core and single-core processors in socket AM2 form-factor have integrated memory controller that supports DDR2 memory at up to 800MHz clock-speed, sport up to 1MB of level-two cache per core and user HyperTransport 1000MHz bus. AMD Sempron processors in AM2 form-factor also integrate dual-channel DDR2 memory controller, a major performance improvement over single-channel DDR memory controller of AMD Sempron chips in 754-pin form-factor, are equipped with 128KB or 256KB L2 caches and operate using 800MHz HT bus.

According to AMD, socket AM2 form-factor decreases pricing of mainboards compared to previous-generation mPGA939 platforms, even though, the company did not say why. Even though AMD promises signficant performance improvement by the new AM2 chips, X-bit labs' review found that performance may not rise dramatically.

"Summing up everything we have said about the new AMD Socket AM2 platform we have to admit that the introduction of DDR2 SDRAM support is a small evolutionary step forward. Our tests showed that the transition to DDR2 SDRAM doesn’t bring in any significant performance gain. Moreover, you have to make sure that your system uses the fastest DDR2 SDRAM with 800MHz frequency and minimal timings if you want to see any performance improvement at all. The widely spread DDR2-667 SDRAM may sometimes provide absolutely no performance gain at all compared with the Socket 939 platforms supporting DDR400 SDRAM with low timings settings," said Ilya Gavrichenkov, the microprocessor and platform analyst at X-bit labs.

Socket AM2 processors from AMD are available immediately worldwide, according to AMD. System builders shipping systems with socket AM2 processors include Alienware, Fujitsu Siemens, HP, and Lenovo, as well as more than 40 computer makers worldwide.