AMD's Athlon 64 - already the source of much speculation over the number of pins each packaged chip will features, 754, 939 and/or 940 - has become embroiled in rumours centring on the company's FX nomenclature. AMD will launch the Athlon 64 on 23 September, that much is known. But German web site Planet 3DNow is claiming it will ship a chip called the Athlon 64 FX alongside the regular Athlon 64. Read More The site reckons the FX chip is the 940-pin Athlon 64, while the standard Athlon 64 will sport 754 pins. Both parts will operate at 2GHz, with the 754-pin part branded the Athlon 64 3200+ and the other one the Athlon 64 FX-51. The former supports a single-channel DDR SDRAM bus, while the FX can handle a dual-channel bus. The logical assumption is that the FX part is actually an Opteron. This makes some sense. Earlier hints about the Athlon 64 pointed to two versions, one for single-CPU systems, the other for dual-processor rigs. The Athlon FX may well be the latter, and AMD is simply re-branding Opterons accordingly. The whole story at The Register