AMD Athlon64 X2's with 256KB L2 cache will be released soon. The ATi R600 supports DirectX 10 but it also aims to be the fastest in the DirectX 9 market as well. Microsoft is already talking about Vista's successor.

Speaking to The Venture Forum conference, Bryan Barnett, a manager for external research programmes in the Microsoft Research group, said that one of the areas being looked at was how to better use multicore processors.