In a few South Slavic languages, including Montenegrin, Volan means steering wheel, but in AMD’s world this is a codename for 2012 new 32nm high end platform.

AMD calls this market segment Enthusiast desktop. The Volan platform comes in 2012, second part of it and It includes Vishera CPUs that can pack up to eight new Pilediver CPU cores. Pilediver should be an improved Bulldozer core, again developed in 32nm.

The good news for AM3+ lovers, Vishera CPUs will continue the AM3+ transition and they should fit in existing FX 990 boards. The chipset of choice is a mixture of AMD 990FX and SB 950 southbridge with PCIe 2.0, Crossfire X support, USB 2.0, 4x 1PCI 2.0 and SATA 6Gb/s. there is no mention of official native USB 3.0 support for this chipset.

The platform is paired with next generation AMD discrete graphics, most likely Southern Islands 28nm generation that is expected by early 2012 if not in very late 2011. This is what AMD plans to pit fight against Sandy Bridge E and probably by the time it comes there might be an Ivy Bridge E high end part to compete against.