In late November, AMD will introduce the desktop version of K10.5 45nm quad-core architecture and the first CPU to launch will only support AM2+ and DDR2 memory.

Early next year, AMD will launch the AM3-based motherboard that will be able to cope with the AM3 version of Deneb. This CPU will support both DDR3 and DDR2 memory.

AM3 CPUs will also fit in AM2+ motherboards, but they will be limited to DDR2 memory only. There will be many motherboards announced in 2009 that will support Deneb and AM3 DDR3 memory, but we don’t think that DDR3 will bring any significant performance benefit over DDR2.