AMD launches Athlon64 and Athlon64 FX

Posted on Thursday, September 25 2003 @ 6:19 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck

Like expected AMD today launched his next generation of 64 bit CPUs. As usual a lot of big sites published reviews about these CPUs, and on some sites you will even find a comparision with the Pentium 4 EE 3.2 GHz .

Here are a few sites with reviews of this new CPU :

Ace's Hardware

AMDZone

Hexus

AMD has also priced the Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX very much like the Pentium 4s they compete with, which is a mistake for a company that has lost so much credibility. AMD needed to significantly undercut Intel (but not as much as they did with the Athlon XP) in order to offer users a compelling reason to switch from Intel. However, given the incredible costs of production (SOI wafers are more expensive as well) and AMD's financial status, AMD had very little option with the pricing of their new chips.

When it comes down to recommendations, the Athlon 64 offers very compelling performance at a much more reasonable price point than the Athlon 64 FX. We cannot recommend the FX until AMD does release a version with unbuffered memory support and we would strongly suggest waiting until the Socket-939 version is released if you are considering the FX.

What is promising however are the performance gains we saw when recompiling for 64-bit on the Athlon 64; if AMD can actually get 64-bit applications and a compatible OS from Microsoft out in the market then the recommendations become much more positive for AMD. Until then, it's wait and see, AMD has done well but execution isn't a singular task - it is continued execution that will guarantee AMD a spot at the top of the market again.

About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.

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Re: AMD launches Athlon64 and Athlon64 FX
by Anonymous on Thursday, September 25 2003 @ 7:59 CEST

Intel should go and sit down accepting a clear defeat here in the new world of competition. AMD cannot give up being the clear winner. the only chip from Intel that could stand the chance of performance gain is Prescott which too power hungry. The only way out for Intel is to include the new x86-64 instruction from AMD but I doubt if their pride would allow them to do that.

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