AMD's next set of consumer desktop platforms, the high-end "Leo" and mainstream "Dorado" are what will bring together AMD's newest system components, including its next round of CPUs, next-generation graphics processors from the DirectX 11 compliant Evergreen family, and the 8-series platform core-logic (chipset) to drive it all. According to latest information pieced together by VR-Zone, AMD's newest chipset will arrive in two rounds of launches, ranging between April and May, 2010.

The two rounds are centric to the platforms they will belong to. On the northbridge front, the enthusiast and high-performance 890FX and 890GX hit retail with products based on it appearing in April 2010, accompanied by the high-end SB850 southbridge. The three will make up the chipset offerings for the Leo platform, which succeeds the current Dragon platform. Following these, the 880G northbridge, accompanied by the SB810 southbridge will make for product launches in May 2010. This pair makes up the mainstream Dorado platform that succeeds the current Pisces platform. The parts will have passed two stages of sampling by this November, and mass production commences in February and April. AMD's newest chipsets are bound to bring in new technologies such as SATA 6 Gb/s, USB 3.0, integrated MAC, and integrated clock generator, along with several other changes.

AMD is planning to create a desktop implementation of its Opteron "Istanbul" monolithic six-core processor. Codenamed "Thuban" (named after a star in the Draco constellation, which means Dragon), the new processor will be based on the socket AM3 package for compatibility with existing and future desktop core logic. It features six cores, 9 MB of total cache (6 x 512 KB L2 + 6 MB L3). Thuban is aimed to make for AMD's high-end desktop processor, as the company prepares to face competition from a near-complete lineup of processors based on the Nehalem/Westmere architectures from Intel. It is expected to be the posterboy for AMD's "Leo" high-end consumer desktop platform that succeeds its current Dragon platform.

Some of the key components that make up AMD Leo platform are the upcoming AMD 890FX and 890GX chipset, companion SB800 series southbridge chips, and members of AMD's Evergreen family of DirectX 11 compliant graphics processors. On the software front, AMD will give its Fusion and Overdrive utilities some big updates. The SB800 series southbridge chips will feature native support for SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0; connectivity is further enhanced by integrated Broadcom MAC Ethernet interfaces. While the Leo platform is expected to launch almost simultaneously with the 8-series chipsets, the six-core Thuban processor on the other hand comes later. It is due only in Q3 2010. Thuban will have come out an year after its enterprise implementation in the form of Opteron "Istanbul".

At the booth of ASUS we found a motherboard that supports the brand-new SATA 6 Gbit/s standard that was released just a few days ago. ASUS prepared a running demo that showcases the performance differences between SATA-II and SATA-III.