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AMD's Athlon 64 X2 6000+ February 19, 2007 Brandon Sandman Bell |
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Summary: Clocked at 3.0GHz and armed with 1MB of L2 cache per core, AMD's Athlon 64 X2 6000+ is poised to deliver serious performance. In light of AMD's more aggressive price strategy, the CPU is also priced to move, undercutting the Core 2 Duo E6700 by around $70. But how well does it perform in comparison to the E6700? Read today's article to find out!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 10 ) |
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Since launching the AM2 platform in May, AMD has quietly launched a slew of new Athlon 64 X2 CPUs for the desktop market, starting with the X2 5200+ in early September, 65-nm Brisbane parts on December 5th, and the 5400+ and 5600+ on December 13th.
All of these processors were stealth launches with little or no fanfare from AMD. Additionally, on launch day they were all primarily focused on the OEM market, with droves of X2 5200+ processors going into HP’s dc5750 business PC in particular. In fact, the 5400+ and 5600+ launch was so low key that AMD didn’t even issue a press release on the day the CPUs became available!
Fortunately for AMD enthusiasts, these processors are now readily available at the retail and e-tail levels, and we should also add that today’s Athlon 64 X2 6000+ launch isn’t a repeat of past recent events, in fact some e-tailers began selling the X2 6000+ prematurely a few weeks ago.
The X2 6000+ runs at 3.0GHz and features 2MB of onboard L2 cache total (1MB of L2 cache per core). With these specs, the X2 6000+ is actually faster than the FX-62, making it the fastest processor for AMD’s AM2 socket. On that note, we should also mention that AMD has basically replaced the FX-62 with the X2 5600+, which ships at the same 2.8GHz clock frequency and 1MB of L2 cache per core, only it consumes less power – 89W max power consumption in the 5600+ versus 125W in the FX-62 (of course, you do lose the unlocked clock multiplier in the process).
Let’s take a look at the X2 6000+ specs:
| Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Specifications | |
| Clock Speed | 3.0GHz |
| Manufacturing Process | Fab 30 and 36, 90-nm DSL SOI |
| Packaging | Socket AM2 |
| Hypertransport Technology | Supports single HT link - up to 8.0GB/sec |
| Memory controller | Shared integrated 128-bit wide |
| CPU-to-Memory controller | 3.0GHz |
| Supported memory speeds | DDR2 Memory up to and including DDR2-800 unbuffered |
| HyperTransport links | 1 |
| HyperTransport spec | 2.0GHz (2x1000MHz/DDR) |
| Memory bandwidth | Up to 20.8GB/sec (8.0GB/sec Hypertransport+12.8GB/sec dual-channel memory) |
| L1 cache size | 64K instruction + 64K data |
| L2 cache size | 1MB L2 cache per core (1MB total) |
| Approximate transistor count | 227.4 million |
| Approximate die size | 218mm2 |
| Nominal voltage | 1.35-1.40V |
| Max thermal power | 125W |
| Max ambient case temp | 55 Celsius-63 degrees Celsius |
| Min power state (with CnC) | 1.0GHz |
| Distributor Pricing (in quantities of 1,000) | $459 |
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Overclocking the 6000+
With most Windsor-based Athlon 64 X2 CPUs topping out around 3.1-3.2GHz, our OC’ing efforts with the X2 6000+ were about in line with what we expected:
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As you can see, we were able to hit speeds just north of 3.2GHz with the X2 6000+ on an ASUS M2N32-SLI Premium motherboard and Zalman CNPS9500 cooler. Unfortunately we needed over 1.55V to hit those speeds, but our temps weren’t too bad, around 50 degrees Celsius under load. We’ve included performance results at the end of this article at 3.225GHz.
| System Setup | Page:: ( 2 / 10 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ (3.0GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ (2.8GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ (2.6GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.6GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (2.4GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2GHz)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0GHz)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67GHz)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4GHz)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 (1.8GHz)
ASUS M2N32-SLI Premium
ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi-AP
2GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C3
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTX w/ForceWare 97.92
Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
LAME MT MP3 Encoding (MS Compiler)
DivX Converter
Windows Media Encoder 9
3DMark06
F.E.A.R. 1.08
Pacific Fighters 4.04
Quake 4 1.2
Oblivion
Company of Heroes 1.3
Cinebench 9.5
| Media encoding and rendering | Page:: ( 3 / 10 ) |
Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9
DivX Converter
LAME MT MP3 Encoding
Cinebench 9.5
| 3DMark 06 | Page:: ( 4 / 10 ) |
Futuremark 3DMark05
| Quake 4 | Page:: ( 5 / 10 ) |
Quake 4
| Company of Heroes | Page:: ( 6 / 10 ) |
Company of Heroes
| Pacific Fighters | Page:: ( 7 / 10 ) |
Pacific Fighters
| Oblivion | Page:: ( 8 / 10 ) |
Oblivion
| Overclocking | Page:: ( 9 / 10 ) |
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 10 / 10 ) |
But how does it perform?
In terms of performance, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ is the fastest X2 processor AMD has ever released. In our testing, the CPU was about 5% faster than the 2.8GHz Athlon 64 X2 5600+, and should pretty much spell the end of the Athlon 64 FX-62: you lose the FX’s unlocked clock multiplier, but gain 200MHz in clock speed with similar power consumption. Only AMD’s Quad FX platform is faster, and as we’ve shown you previously, that would only apply in the case of a handful of apps that have been designed to take advantage of quad processing cores.
However, the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ still takes a backseat in performance compared to its nearest-priced competitor from Intel, the Core 2 Duo E6700. In Quake the margin was just 7% at 800x600, but in Lost Coast it grew to 11%. Company of Heroes ran just over 20% faster on the Core 2 E6700 platform. The E6700 also ran faster in our media encoding and DivX conversion tests, although our 3D rendering tests with Cinebench gave the edge to the Athlon 64 X2 6000+.
In other words, Intel’s Core 2 platform is still faster, but thanks to AMD’s more aggressive CPU pricing, it’s a much closer battle between the two manufacturers than it was a just few months ago. Priced at $459 in quantities of 1,000, the 6000+ carries a list price that is $71 cheaper than the Core 2 Duo E6700 officially, this could give the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ an advantage among price-conscious consumers.
Of course, Intel isn’t expected to stand still for long. It’s been widely rumored that Intel has some pretty aggressive price cuts of their own on tap for Q2’07. With today’s debut of the Athlon 64 X2 6000+, it’s conceivable that Intel could retaliate with their expected price cuts before then. This tit-for-tat battle will likely continue for the remainder of 2007 and into 2008. The end result is cheaper CPUs for you and me, and that’s definitely a good thing.
As it stands right now though, Intel’s Core 2 line is still the world’s fastest processor, but AMD is keeping things competitive with their aggressive pricing. If you crave performance first and foremost, Core 2 would be your ideal solution, but if price is important to you (keep in mind that at 1600x1200 and up, CPU performance is less of a factor in games), then it’s hard to resist AMD.