CPU NEWS: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ CPU

HWUpgrade and X-bit Labs take a look at the AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ CPU, the fastest Athlon 64 to date.

The new CPU comes officially clocked at 3 GHz with 1 MB of L2 cache per core. This is the same speed that AMD's Athlon 64 FX-74 chip, which was introduced last year near the end of November, runs at. The core is the same Windsor core which AMD has already used for a couple of its processors, namely the Athlon 64 X2 and Athlon 64 FX-62 solutions. As we briefly discussed earlier, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ still uses a 90nm manufacturing process. The official price for a single Athlon 64 X2 6400+ in a quantity of 1,000 is $464. The next AMD part with the most similar amount of features, the FX-74, is available at a price of $1,000. Keep in mind, however, that the FX-74 figure is for two processors since a complete package must be bought. In addition, the FX-74 can only be used with AMD's Quad FX platform. AMD declares the maximum thermal power of the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ at 125 W, a figure that is identical to the maximum thermal power of the Athlon 64 FX-62 which also happens to be 200 MHz slower. Nominal voltage is between 1.35V and 1.40V, the same value for other Athlon 64 X2 90nm processors. The integrated memory controller uses a divider set at 8.

Two factors make overclocking headroom for the new AMD CPU limited. For one, the processor is the highest clocked Athlon 64 X2 processor in commerce, meaning that AMD has already pushed the processor to its limit. In addition, the fact that the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ is manufactured using a 90nm makes it even tougher to have high overclocking hopes for the processor. Please also keep in mind that overclocking capabilities usually vary chip to chip. Although we might be able to reach high overclocks with some of our chips, there is no guarantee that another would perform exactly the same. The maximum frequency our engineering sample reached in the overclocking tests was 3.255 GHz. We reached this frequency by increasing the bus frequency to 217 MHz and keeping the multiplier at its default 15x. To maintain system stability at this level, the operation required a very slight overvolt. As our tests confirm, the overclocking headroom on Athlon 64 6000+ processors is rather limited, primarily because of the 90nm manufacturing process.

Despite its significantly higher performance rating and $459 retail price, the new AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ processor can only compete successfully with Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, though not in all applications. From the price-to-performance prospective it is losing to the Intel Core 2 Duo at this time. So, the newcomer will have really hard times winning the user's hearts. At least until the prices go down again.

More reviews can be found on AnandTech, HotHardware, T-Break.

AMD has also launched new single-core Athlon 64 3500+ and Athlon 64 3800+ processors based on its new 65nm process. The two chips run at the same respective 2.2GHz and 2.4GHz clock speeds with the same 512KB of cache as their 90nm predecessors, and they have rated power consumption of just 45W. The 45W Athlon 64 3500+ is launching at $88, while the 3800+ is $93.