AMD Prepping Triple, Quad Core Mobile CPUs

Make way for a ménage à trois of AMD mobile CPU cores.

Laptops, with their strict power and heat restrictions, typically feature dual-core processors. But AMD is looking to crank things up beyond Intel's Arrandale chips that have just two cores.

AMD's Bob Grim, director of client product marketing, said that triple core mobile chips will be shipping by the end of the first half of this year, reported PC World. Grim poses that triple core chips sit in a unique spot of performing better than dual-core processors while not incurring the power penalty of having four cores. It's simple logic, but true nonetheless.

The new chips from AMD will be a part of the 45-nm Danube platform, which will support DDR3 memory. AMD expects Danube to extend battery life by more than an hour.

Both dual and quad core AMD chips can also be integrated into Danube, leading some enthusiasts to ponder whether or not some chips will simply be crippled quad core parts. If so, then may the core unlocking take place on laptops too!