AMD Athlon 64 3000+ details revealed

WITH ALL THE buzz on the Athlon64 3000+, and rumors starting to hit, there is more FUD than facts flying around.

Let's quash a few of the rumours, and set things straight. First up, the 3000+ is a Clawhammer core running at 1.8GHz with 1MB cache. Who would have thought AMD would have taken such a radical step?

The more interesting bit is the pricing. The current Athlon64 3200+ can be found for about $400 -- give or take a few. This new chip will be a little more than half that when it debuts, most likely on December 15, but that could still change by a few days. Look for the price to be less than $225 once the newness factor wears off. While this release is probably too late to affect Christmas sales much, it bodes well for 64 bit chip pricing in the new year.

One thing that makes me wonder is what will happen when AMD releases the 3400+ in early January. Will it drop the price of the 3200+ and the 3000+, or just the 3200+? Will it take the "we have the high ground" route and slot the 3400+ in above the 3200+ without dropping prices? Where will that leave the FX-51?

We were going to include a picture of the little bugger, but AMD is putting a new anti-photographic finish on them, we think just for us. Pretend with us that you can read the blurry text on the chip, it really does say 3000. I'll have better ones tomorrow.

Whatever the case, 64 bit chips are about to get a lot cheaper in the near future, more plentiful also. µ