AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Processor Review

AMD Gets a Much Needed Speed Boost

In 2006, the desktop processor race once again became interesting as Intel successfully took away the performance crown from AMD. While AMD doesn’t deny the lead by Intel they have broken their silence and believes that 2007 will be the year of their comeback. When AMD announced the Athlon 64 FX-62 processor back in May of 2006, little did we know that it would remain the fastest socket AM2 processor thanks to it’s 2.8GHz clock speed. Nearly nine months later AMD has launched a faster socket AM2 processor called the AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+. This processor is clocked at 3.0GHz and other than the increased multiplier that allows the 200MHz speed bump, it has no other changes architecturally speaking.

Other than launching the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ processor, AMD is also bringing to market a pair of energy-efficient 45-watt AMD Athlon 64 single-core processors called the 3500+ and 3800+. The new energy-efficient AMD Athlon 64 processors 3500+ and 3800+ are based on their recent 65nm process. Today, Legit Reviews will be focused on covering just the 6000+ as it’s the processor we have in our hands. Let’s take a closer look at the specifications.

Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Specifications
Clock Speed	3.0GHz (15 x 200MHz)
Manufacturing Process	Dresden Fab 30 and 36, 90-nm DSL SOI
Packaging	Socket AM2 (940-pins)
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	55-63 degrees Celsius
Min power state (with CnC)	1.0GHz
Distributor Pricing (in quantities of 1,000)	$459

The AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ has 1MB of L2 cache per core and is still manufactured on the 90nm process, so in terms of energy efficiency and overclocking it should have the same characteristics that AMD users have become accustomed to. By remaining on the 90nm process it makes for an easy upgrade to exisiting motherboards as a BIOS upgrade is not required and th 90nm processors have lower memory latency over the new 65nm parts.

Let’s take a look at pricing!