Further details on Intel’s upcoming hexacore Xeon processors have surfaced, suggesting that the chips will form their own flagship line rather than replacing the existing quadcore processors. Word out on the web is that the hexacore chips will initially be in short supply – kicking off with the 3.33GHz Core i7-980X in March 2010 – and will be expensive, too; $999 for the i7-980X.

Meanwhile as well as the second hexacore, the 3.2GHz Core i7-970, which is expected to arrive in Q3 2010, there’s a little news on the third model in the series. That won’t arrive until 2011, when it replaces the Core i7-980X with the same clock speed but a lower price, and with a new “flagship” CPU above it. Apple are expected to launch a new Mac Pro desktop with the i7-980X on March 16th.

Much like Intel decided to go for the per core overclokcing feature ‘Turbo boost’ AMD apprantly also will follow that trend by enabling a new feature called Dynamic Performance Boost for the upcoming Thuban (hexacore) processors.

The “Thuban” architecture is based on 45nm architecture and will feature an integrated DDR2/DDR3 controller. The chip is based on AMD’s six-core Opteron chip. It is expected that the piece will be called Phenom II X6.

The dynamic performance boost technology is currently known as “C-state performance boost” and will supposedly be able to detect when single-threaded operation is needed, or vice verse when multiple threads are active.

The idle CPU cores will be automatically disabled and the clocks of the ones used will be boosted to as high a level as possible. The limit will be determined by the general thermal design power.

We certainly can’t wait to see the all new Phenom II X6 “Thuban” series processors likely somewhere in April / May.