Athlon 64 X2 and Gaming

Dual-Core on Your Desktop

Intel might be able to say that it announced and launched a dual-core product first, but AMD has the plans in place to service server, workstation, and desktop users by June of this year. It’ll take Intel another six months at least to address those same markets with Dempsey, the 65nm dual-core Xeon DP.

So, AMD will trail a bit on the desktop side, but only by a couple of months. Its Athlon 64 X2 family is expected to be nearly identical to the Opteron, only in 939-pin packaging. Oh, and intermediate models will continue utilizing different sized L2 caches, just like today’s Athlon 64 lineup.

At the top, you’ll find an Athlon 64 4800+ ($1,001), followed by 4600+ ($803), 4400+ ($581), and 4200+ ($537) models. That flagship runs at 2.4GHz and comes equipped with a cumulative 2MB L2. The 4600+ runs at 2.4GHz as well, but each core has 512KB instead. The 4400+ runs at 2.2GHz with dual 1MB caches, and the 4200+ is at 2.2GHz with the 512KB repositories. Clearly, if you’re a desktop user, it’ll pay to wait for these Athlon 64 X2 models because they’re much cheaper than the Opterons that will be available, but unfortunately you will have to wait awhile. While AMD will officially launch the X2 line in June, first shipments in both North America and Europe will be targeted for system builders. AMD doesn’t expect strong retail availability for North America until Q4 of this year, so those of you looking for a deal on Athlon 64 X2 may have to wait awhile.

Complicating matters for enthusiasts on a budget is AMD's single-core plans. AMD has no current plans to release a follow-up single-core Athlon 64 processor; the Athlon 64 4000+ will remain the flagship of the Athlon 64 line and, along with the Athlon 64 FX-55/FX-57, will be the last of the single-core processors AMD produces.

As with the Opteron chips, dual-core Athlon processors require only a BIOS update to their 939-pin socket motherboards. No, there’s no 754-pin version planned, it seems. After all, the memory bandwidth hit would be too severe, we’re guessing. You do get Cool’n’Quiet, though, along with AMD’s Enhanced Virus Protection feature. In terms of availability

Upcoming AMD Athlon 64 X2/FX Lineup
CPU	Clock Speed	L2 Cache Size	Price
Athlon 64 X2 4800+	2.4GHz	1MB	$1001
Athlon 64 X2 4600+	2.4GHz	512KB	$803
Athlon 64 X2 4400+	2.2GHz	1MB	$581
Athlon 64 X2 4200+	2.2GHz	512KB	$537

Athlon 64 FX in the future

Notice the lack of an Athlon 64 FX version of AMD’s dual-core strategy. For the time being, it’s recognized that games are exclusively written for single-threaded operation and as such run better on single-threaded processors at elevated frequencies. Thus, the FX series marches on at 2.6GHz for now.

According to documents from AMD, that’ll be the first time multiple FX model persists, as there are plans to keep the FX-55 in production to meet perceived demand. Both chips target gamers exclusively, pandering to view that AMD is better at listening to the enthusiast community.