The world's first mainstream six-core microprocessor, AMD's Phenom II X6 1055T, has gone on sale in the UK at prices that might give Intel's Core i3 and Core i5 systems some serious competition.

Advanced Micro Devices' upcoming six-core Phenom II X6 processors for desktops are already showing up in online retail stores prior to the chips' official launch later this month.

Intel Corp. may still hold bragging rights for having the fastest desktop processors on the market, but Advanced Micro Devices Inc. believes its newest chips' value for money will prove more popular in these tough economic times.

AMD on Thursday introduced the latest member of its Phenom II X4 family of high-performance quad-core CPUs, which the No. 2 chip maker said it had run as fast as 7 GHz in extreme overclocking tests.

Size matters and so does performance. The ongoing goal to make devices smaller and more efficient to keep ahead of the pack has been ringing true since the evolution of the bulky PC to the Eee PC, and from the stereo to the iPod. It’s a small world after all and it’s set to get smaller as new concepts and devices roll through the production stages. But as the economic doom settles in, what component technologies will shine through?

Online retailers have begun selling Advanced Micro Devices' upcoming Phenom II processors, well ahead of the company's processor announcement plans for early January.

Advanced Micro Devices could bring DDR3 memory support to Phenom II desktops earlier than it had projected, the company said on Monday.