AMD's first 65nm processors will appear late this year, online reports coming out of Taiwan's mobo-maker community have claimed. Four Athlon 64 X2s based on the 'Brisbane' core will ship in December, but don't get your hopes up: they're likely to be only available as engineering samples for hardware developers.

In other words, AMD's 65nm launch is still on track for an H1 2007 debut as per the company's roadmap, though if the above claim, made in an article on Chinese-language site HKEPC, is correct, the parts should debut sooner rather than later next year.

The report points to four Brisbanes: the 4200+, 4400+, 4600+ and 4800+. The first two are clocked at 2.2GHz, the rest at 2.4GHz. The 4200+ and 4600+ contain 512KB of L2 cache, the report says, while the 4400+ and the 4800+ have 1MB of cache.

Since those model numbers and specifications match those of existing 90nm Athlon 64 X2s, AMD will presumably be pitching the parts not for their outright performance but for their lower power consumption and hence improved performance-per-Watt rating. Alas, the report provides no indication as the the Brisbane chips' TDP. The latest 90nm parts - based on the Socket AM2 'Windsor' core, expected to be announced next week - are rated at 89W. ®