Sources familiar with the plans of Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday denied the fact that the company has plans to release dual-core AMD Phenom processors, but said that the chipmaker plans to release dual-core chips based on the K10 micro-architecture under the AMD Athlon X2 brand-name.

Instead of three AMD Phenom X2 chips (as reported on Tuesday), the world’s second largest maker of x86 microprocessors plans to release one AMD Athlon X2 6500 microprocessor based on the K10 micro-architecture in early September. The chip will operate at 2.30GHz, feature 1MB of L2 cache [512KB per core], 2MB L3 cache as well as dual-channel DDR2 memory controller. The new product will have thermal design power of 95W, hence, should be compatible with the vast majority of AM2+ mainboards.

The new AMD Athlon X2 6500 processor is based on code-named Kuma design and it is highly likely that the chip will be among very few of such dual-core 65nm microprocessors based on the K10 micro-architecture. In fact, the new chip will feature unlocked multiplier, a feature that allows enthusiasts to easily overclock microprocessors, and only be available on channel market.

It is not completely clear why AMD decided to brand its 2.30GHz processor as Athlon 64 X2 6500, as based on performance estimates, the Athlon X2 6400 (3.20GHz) can offer similar or even higher performance compared to AMD Phenom X3 8750 (2.40GHz). As a result, the new model 6500 may be slower compared to the old model 6400.

In addition to the AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor, Advanced Micro Devices also reportedly plans to release AMD Phenom X3 8750 (2.50GHz), 8550 (2.20GHz), 8450e (2.10GHz) and 8250e (1.90GHz) processors with three cores on the 2^nd of September, 2008.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.

Tags: AMD, Athlon X2, Phenom