Desktop Roadmap AMD yesterday spilled the beans on its processor plans for the next two years, at a stroke confirming much of the info that has leaked out of the company and onto the web this year. On the desktop, the future is HyperTransport 3 and DDR 3. Chipsets will not shift to DirectX 10 until late 2007.

The key transition point, however, will come mid-2007. AMD has already said that's when its quad-core desktop CPUs will debut alongside new dual-core chips that, like the quadies, used HyperTransport 3 and incorporate Level 3 cache shared between the cores - 2MB of it, according to past leaks.

These two processor families - quad-core and dual-core - are believed to be codenamed 'Agena' and 'Kuma', respectively. The names 'Altair' and 'Antares' have also been mentioned in connection with these chips.

Both will support DDR 2, but DDR 3 support won't arrive - officially, at any rate - until mid-2008, when AMD introduces new single-, dual- and quad-core parts. Even then, there will be plenty of DDR 2 systems around, the roadmap suggests.

Single-core versions of Agena and Kuma - believed to be codenamed 'Spica' - will debut in Q4 2007, according to AMD's public roadmap.

Mid-2007 will see AMD's CrossFire chipset family migrate to HyperTransport 3 and PCI Express 2, followed some six months later or so by its integrated chipset line, which will also gain DirectX 10 support. ®