AMD Athlon 64 X2 fumes competition

AMD FAN boys and girls must probably be celebrating worldwide and dancing on the supermegasoarawayinfostrasse after reviews from all over the world proved to the rest of it that AMD indeed now produces the fastest processors in the world in all categories - budget to server high end. The expiry of NDA's yesterday night means that there has been a raft of reviews of AMD's latest desktop CPU all over the web.

Sudhian reviewed the two-headed monster which features a Toledo core, SSE3 support, improved memory loading and a maximym TDP of 110W and compatibility with AGP motherboards such as the nForce 3 ones. Sudhian is rather surprised that the dual Athlon 4000+ core X2 only bares a 4800+ PR. The X2 is the best processor out there, bar none.

Marco Chiappetta and Dave Altavilla checks the X2 4800+ which costs as much as the most expensive Intel EE processor or the AMD FX55. It is clocked at 2.4Ghz and has 1MB cache per core. They note that it is an excellent performer in almost all categories and does allow a smooth platform transition. Intel though has the price and production advantage for Dual cores.

AMDZone also reviews the X2 4800+ plus gives some specs of the other processors, 4600+ to 4200+. Tests bench include the 3500+, the 3800+ and the 4800+. They add that the CPU runs surprisingly cool, probably even cooler than the FX55 and that this might mean that overclockers might even push it higher; if they can.

The X2 4800+ CPU is tested by Leo Waldock from Trustedreviews. Tjey're more than impressed and more than that. Staggering was the expression they used. Performance was top notch and only disappointment was price.

PCWorld, American version, has its own test of the AMD X2 4800+ which they pit against the recently launched EE840 processor whose cores run at a full 33% faster but lag behind in terms of performance. Here again, cleansweep from AMD's X2.

ZDNet and Extremetech, both of which are part of Giant IT conglomerate CNet, released their X2 4800+ only hours ago. ZDNet has a brief one page/three benchmarks reviews where it was stacked up against the EE840. In that particular case six systems were used with two of them from AMD. Extremetech on the other hand puts the words WOW and smokes the competition in the same phrase. Unusual for a "going-by-the-book" website. They are ecstatic about the X2 and even went to used an overclocked liquid cooled PEE 840 running at 4GHz. Guess what, result showed that a 4GHz PEE would be needed to beat the AMD X2 4800+. AMD has locked the clocks on the Athlon 64 X2 series though.

The colder review out there is definitely that of Anand. While it says that the X2 is the best processor out there, it highlights the point that its price won't fall to something more reasonable until at least early 2006. Also critical will be the availability of the processors and future support from software.

I expect AMD to do the same trick as they did with first Athlon 64+. Bring Dual core to the wealthier and then let it trickle down to more affordable levells. Now if they could simply turn that Turion MT28 into a X2 Turion... That would be nice.