In the course of the last few months, AMD has discussed its Barcelona processor, which is based on AMD's next generation K10 architecture, on a number of occasions. Barcelona, for those of you who haven't heard of it yet, is AMD's next generation server CPU, and as such, will fit into the company's Opteron line of processors. Despite how popular a topic its server processors seem to be for the company, AMD hasn't talked much about its next generation desktop chips. In Monterey, California, though, AMD today changed all that and unveiled working prototypes of its next generation desktop chips. The company had prototypes of its quad-core desktop processor running in single-socket or dual-socket configurations. Based on the K10 architecture, the chip can be considered a desktop version of Barcelona, and as of right now, is known by its codename Agena FX.

The dual-socket system, which is shown running in the above photos, is based on the Quad FX platform. In this case, though, it would more suit the system if the term Octa FX was used, since the system has a total of 8 processing cores on hand and is AMD's first demonstration of a quad-core desktop. The motherboard used in the system is an AMD reference board and has two 1207 pin sockets. In addition, the board has 3 PCI Express 16x slots and is based on the AMD RD790 chipset, a chipset which is expected to make its debut in the second half of 2007.

The single-socket version of Agena FX is based on AMD's Socket AM2+. The chipset used in the display system was the AMD RD790, the same chipset used in the Quad FX system. In the case of the single slot system, though, there were a total of 4 PCI Express 16x slots present. The bus used was Hypertransport 3.0, and we were told that all links were operating at maximum speed.

AMD failed to go into more detail regarding the technical specifications of the processors. The company only went as far as to say that the operating frequency of the processors used in the dual-socket system was more than that of the single-socket one. Market availability of these CPUs is also quite far off. In the third quarter of 2007 AMD will release the quad-core Opteron CPUs, and only after that will it launch quad-core solutions for desktop systems. The release will coincide with the launch of the RD790 chipset.

Although we did get to see the systems running in realtime, unfortuanately AMD did not run any actual performance benchmarks. At the moment, AMD does not want to release performance numbers before the official launch. From the way we see it, the event was held by AMD in order to confirm that the company is working on quad-core desktop processors deep inside its labs.