Earlier this year, we already reported that the six-core Opteron processor, code-named Istanbul, is a fairly straightforward upgrade over current 'Shanghai' Opterons: a 45nm processor with 6MB of L3 cache that fits into a Socket F-style motherboards, only with six cores rather than four. As a result, the upcoming Istanbul-based Opterons will serve as drop-in upgrades for existing Socket F systems. The chips will take advantage of the same 2P, 4P, and 8P infrastructure as today's Opterons, with HyperTransport and two channels of DDR2 memory per socket.

Exactly four months later, the Opteron 2427, 2431 and 2435 (running at 2,2, 2,4 and 2,6 GHz, respectively) started appearing on Japanese store shelves, according to Akiba PC Hotline, now. The suggested retail price is $455, $689 and $989.

Several other new versions are supposed to follow soon. As always, we'll keep you updated here at Guru3D, of course.