AMD will stick to the three-core products and it plans to release an update for this product line in first quarter of 2009. The update will be based on 45nm product currently codenamed Heka, basically Deneb quad-core with one core disabled. 

The plan is rather simple, these three cores should fight Core 2 and Pentium dual core line up from Intel and naturally they will be priced at a very similar price range if not cheaper.

The biggest issue is that AMD cannot get its clock of its three core Heka to 3.33GHz, the currently fastest speed of Core 2 generation as Heka, 45nm three core will stop at under 3GHz speeds at launch.

We believe that 3.33GHz Core 2 Duo E8600 should be able to give Heka three core Phenom II a good fight especially as Heka won't reach 3GHz or faster speeds at launch. At same clock we are sure Heka, Phenom II will have a fighting chance.