The AMD Quad FX platform is an AMD platform targeted at enthusiasts which allows users to plug two Socket F Athlon 64 FX or 2-way Opteron processors (CPUs) into a single motherboard for a total of four physical cores. This is a type of dual processor setup, where two CPUs are installed on a motherboard to increase computing power. The major difference between the platform and past dual processor systems like Xeon (pre Intel 5000X/P chipset) is that each processor has its own dedicated memory stores. The Quad FX platform also has HyperTransport capability targeted toward consumer platforms. In May 2007, AMD officially codenamed the eight core setup with two Phenom FX processors to be the FASN8 (pronounced as "fascinate", , in short for First AMD Silicon Next-gen 8-core Platform) from the previous codename "4x4+" used in Analyst Day presentations. Configuration In each socket resides an AMD Athlon 64 FX CPU. Each socket is connected using AMD's Direct Chip Module, this dual-processor architecture was dubbed by AMD as the "Dual Socket Direct Connect Architecture" (DSDC Architecture), providing a dedicated channel between the CPU cores and from each CPU out to the system memory. Due to the nature of the Direct Connect architecture, each CPU can access the other's dedicated memory store. The both of them, constituting one four-core system, have a power consumption (TDP) of 250 W for each 125 W labelled TDP. AMD first announced the platform as "Socket 4x4" on June 1, 2006, citing customer feedback for such a system. A four-core system has been exhibited as a demo at AMD headquarters on July 25, 2006. AMD has claimed that the systems which consist of a pair of CPUs will cost below US$1000 altogether with a suitable motherboard. The motherboards strongly resemble dual-socket Opteron 22xx series motherboards as they share the same socket and one bank of memory DIMMs per CPU, but the motherboards of the platform have support for regular unbuffered DDR2 RAM while the Opteron setup requires registered memory. The platform also has support for multiple graphics cards. An eight core reference system was demonstrated in an event held early May 2007 by AMD. Competing products The major competition of the platform is from Intel, which launched its Core 2 Duo desktop microprocessors in late July 2006 and its multi-chip module quad-core processor codenamed "Kentsfield" in November 2006 as the Core 2 Extreme series. Intel had