Maximum PC is reporting that AMD officials have confirmed release of hexa-core processor for desktop next year. The new CPU is codenamed “Thuban” and it will be manufactured using 45nm process technology. The new chip will feature integrated DDR3 controller, 3MB of L2 cache and 6MB of L3 cache. It will be branded as Phenom II X6.

AMD says that the company is all about longevity and long-lived upgrade paths and hence the new chip will be backwards compatible with existing AM3 and AM2+ motherboards. AMD didn’t offer any information about the speed of the processor or thermal requirements, but said the chip will be slightly bigger than Phenom II X4 at 346mm2 size and will have massive 904 million transistors. Whereas, Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition has 758 million transistors on a 258mm2 die.

AMD’s Thuban CPU will compete against Intel’s Gulftown hexa-core processor that Intel will announce later this year and starting shipping early next year. It is highly likely that Intel Gulftown will come to the market way before AMD Thuban ships, giving Intel a healthy lead in high margin performance processor market. Which isn’t good news for AMD.