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AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 Processor 2.6GHz, 2x1MB, 2000MHz FSB, Socket 939 - SKU: ADAFX60BNBOX
Price Range: $1,011.00 - $1,289.30
Three weeks ago AMD decided to unleash a new processor onto the high-end market. Of course we are talking about the new AMD Athlon 64 FX-60, the first ever dual-core processor in the high-end FX range of processors for the enthusiast PC users and gamers.
Based on the short lived Socket 939 design, it runs at no less than 2,6 GHz and yes .. that's 200 MHz slower than the single threaded FX-57 which has 1 Megabyte Level 2 cache memory, a 2.8 GHz clock frequency and quite frankly still is a bitching fast processor ... today Guru3D.com is presenting you the review as always from a gamers point of view.
Today's processor being tested is based on the latest 90nm processor fabrication process from AMD, the processor was released roughly three weeks ago and still rather difficult to find and/or buy, expect sales starting in the first two weeks of February 2006 though, pretty much at the launch of this publication we should see the AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 show up in some stores. Its price as at this very moment is a massive factor. You still need to chip in a lot of money and please do not choke now if you are eating something, expect roughly 1000-1200 US Dollars / Euros for this high-end processor.
What is it that is giving this chip its edge? Well a blazingly fast dual-core architecture, a rapid processor frequency clock of 2600 MHz and of course each core which has been equipped with 1MB of Level 2 Cache.
The core of the FX-60 is based on the "Toledo" core which we also know from the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ and X2 4800+ I already spilled the beans, but yes this core is made at a 90nm fabrication procedure. It includes a DDR400 DDR memory controller built into the processor, I hope to see a new line of processors with DDR2 support soon though. Furthermore the newer features like SSE3and XD-bit are of course included also.
So yes .. the processor is 200 MHz less faster than the FX-57, but then again 200 MHz faster then the fastest X2 processor available, the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Another notable feature for the gamers and overclockers among us which I should mention is that the multiplier of this processor has been unlocked.
The fun thing about the processor is of course that it's compatible with 64-bit platforms, sorry if you don't want to hear this but in a year or two we'll probably all run in a 64-bit environment in the form of Windows Vista as it is the next logical step. It is a welcome feature if you are one of the few out there running on Windows XP 64-bit Edition now. The rest of us the chip will run in its legacy 32-bit x86 mode without any issues at all. Optimal 32- and 64-bit compatibility without performance loss, that's the key factor here. our tests today have been made in a 32-bit environment as we follow mainstream trends.
With an unlocked multiplier and a lot of violent behavior under that heatspreader, there are two beasts in that processor. We'll take it for a little test spin and of course we'll mainly look at it from a gamers point of view. Let's fire up this review shall we?
