AMD and Intel, with engines whining and rubber laid, hustled to the dual core finish line so they could sit and wait for Software to catch up, still panting in the tire smoke at the starting line. AMD, impatient with the thumb-twiddling year-and-a-half wait, decided to upgrade their old stuff.
Until PC games are dual-core ready, the ADD generation won’t have to wait for a speedier, graphic enhanced experience. The cost: a mere $1,031 when bought in 1000 unit shipments; just $300 more than its predecessor, the FX-55.
AMD says it’s a small price to pay for ultimate gaming action while you wait for more ultimate gaming action, adding to the assertion of some that there’s no rush to buy a dual-core processor.
“AMD recognizes that today’s games are single-threaded. Users who crave the absolute best performance on 3D games and extreme applications can experience realistic physics and lighting, as well as gripping artificial intelligence and sound, with the single-core AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 processor,” said Bob Brewer, corporate VP of AMD’s desktop business, MPU solutions sector.
The specs are very impressive, running at 2.6GHz on 90-nanometer process technology, as opposed to the usual 130nm. The processor is fitted with 1MB of L2 cache memory and a 2GHz HyperTransport bus. It requires a 939 motherboard and a bios upgrade.
“The AMD Athlon 64 FX-57 processor is the highest performing single-core processor in the consumer market and I believe that at least for the next 18 months, it is this single-core performance that will be most important to the most competitive players of PC games,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst for The Enderle Group
AMD plans to release a dual-core version of the Athlon 64 FX processor once multi-threaded software games become more available.
A slew of companies are planning to build systems around the new processor. The list includes Amitech, Levi, Elite PC, Planet Computers, Velocity Micro, Voodoo PC and Thirdwave.
“Now in our fourth iteration, the AMD Athlon 64 FX family of processors continues to remain unmatched in the industry, designed to provide even the most demanding gamer with reduced memory latency and increased performance,” said AMD corporate vice president Bob Brewer.
