After Intel’s Dunnington hexa-core hype, AMD has been embarking on an around-the-world epiphany of sorts, tinkering with its Barcelona hexa-core chip to come up with Shanghai, which has the HyperTransport 3.0 clock generator right.

Moreon, Shanghai was pimped out some more to become Istanbul, AMD’s response to Intel’s hexa-core.

Here’s the good bit. The twin-die Istanbul processor could allow you-gotta-be-kidding 12 cores per package, using the ultra-high-speed HyperTransport 3.0 bus to exchange data. What’s more, a single core, with its dual-channel memory controller, will be able to emulate quad-core functions. Enough said.

Verdict: Istanbul isn’t meta-conscious yet, but it will do.