Amd announced it will release its first 12-core processor in 2010. 

http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/08/amd-announces-6-and-12-core-opterons/

AMD may be busy sorting out issues with its quad-core Phenoms and hard at work on "completely different" chip architectures, but that isn't stopping the company from aggressively updating its roadmap, announcing today plans for 6- and 12-core server-grade Opterons. Both the new 6-core chip, codenamed Sao Paulo, and the 12-core unit, codenamed Magny-Cours, are based on a brand-new platform called "Maranello," and slotting in to replace the planned 8-core Barcelona chip, which appears to have been canceled. According to AMD, 12-core chips are easier to manufacture, so it's going to skip over 8-core chips and go straight to the good stuff. That must be news to Intel, which is planning on shipping 8-core Nehalem chips later this year, and will probably then hold the coveted "number-of-cores" crown until AMD releases the 12-core chips in 2010. There's no word on whether any of these chips can make these processor roadmaps comprehensible or even chronological, but we can dream, can't we?

all I have to say is we are moving to fast for people to upgrade their systems. 

2010, nuff said.

And when you say "Systems" if you mean consoles, lol Square Enix is gonna go outta biz like tres keeps on saying.

Oh sorry I meant computer systems. lol

Ahh, alright in that case...yup i'd have to agree lol! 2010 is still far off though but still sounds pricy overall. :/

Nice! Now technology you just keep on improving at even more blistering paces. By the time the next round of consoles comes out all three big players should be able to release decent powered consoles at a decent price.

May I refer you to my own opinion on AMD's roadmap?

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=49026

12-core sounds good but, seeing as most applications barely take advantage of two cores, twelve is not going to be much better. Each core will probably lose to Core 2, definitely lose to Core i7 (Nehalem) and be decimated by 32nm Nehalem in 2009 and Sandy Bridge in 2010.

Applications don't take advantage more than two cores, because there weren't that many cores when they were made/designed. However its not trivial to use more cores than there are different kind of tasks, but its possible. For example my current simulation program takes as many cores as you have. There are no limits.(Ok, theres actually one limit. If theres more cores than work, but that would make it run real time with only few clock cycles.)

As for AMD's roadmap... Those processors have way too small cache. Using stuff from ram instead of cache is way too 'slow'. :/

Yes, I know applications can be rewritten from the ground up to take advantage of n-core chips. (I'll ignore massively parallel tasks and server apps, because it's trivial to scale them. Deesktop/laptop users don't use massively parallel apps, but that's where the sales volume is.) However, it's all about compatibility.  If you're going to require everyone to do a rewrite, you might as well make a clean break and move to a better architecture like IBM POWER. Actually you might as well dump Windows too, since compatibility is its last advantage. Seriously, 90% of the apps people will want to use (especially games) will NOT be rewritten for cores>2 (or even cores>1).

Oh, and the cache situation isn't that bad. Firstly, AMD has exclusive cache compared to Intel's inclusive cache (relating to whether data in L1 is copied to L2 and L3)  so their 'effective' cache size is larger. Secondly, their cache latencies are much better than Intel's. No, the problem isn't cache: it's execution. They have a nice socket, bus, cache, chipset, graphics integration, and everything else, but Intel's core is just faster.

So many cores.... so little use..... Current High-End Quad cores aren't being maxed out.... atleast to my knowledge...

The speed at which technology moves is scary :(