A number of previews have finally surfaced about the long awaited AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core processor. How does it compare to Intels dual core chip? Check out some of the previews below to find out.

 For starters, the Athlon 64 X2 is already supported by nearly every 939-pin motherboard already on the market. We are told that most 939-pin motherboards will only need a simple BIOS flash to make the AMD Athlon 64 X2 compatible. We are currently running our Athlon 64 X2 on a production ASUS A8N-SLI motherboard with nothing more than a BETA bios. So many of us will see an upgrade to dual core with little more than the purchase of a processor.

If that were not enough, AMD has done some very slick things with Athlon 64 X2 power consumption, much as we have seen them do with their low power “mobile” processors. The power consumption is low enough for the dual core technology that no heatsink updates are needed, so most Athlon 64 thermal solutions currently on the market will fare just fine.