Introduction and System Setup

If you thought the Athlon 64 3000+ release on the market was odd, wait until you see the 2800+ that has appeared on the scene.

Another Surprise Release from AMD

When AMD released the Athlon 64 3000+ processor, it was the first time that I can remember AMD not largely publicizing processor release.  The Athlon 64 3000+ offered a good value to the consumer, but also was the beginning of the end for the initial generation of Athlon 64 processors.  The 3000+, and the new 2800+, both only feature 512 KB of L2 cache, where the initial release of the 3200+ and 3400+ models of the Athlon 64 line both feature 1 MB of L2 cache.  The new Athlon 64 processors brought up the talk of the next core of the Athlon 64 processors, and it was later revealed that indeed the next interation of the Athlon 64 processor (not including the FX line) were going to only feature 512 KB of cache. 

The reasoning the AMD gave me for the quiet release of the Athlon 64 3000+ was that they felt no need to use their marketing dollars to publicize a processor that doesn’t perform as a well as the current processors available.  This kind of mentatlity makes a certain kind of sense, though for the enthusiast community, it is something we are definitely interested in.  The same is also true with this release of the 2800+ model.

After inquiring to AMD about this latest processor, the reasoning behind the release of the CPU was placed upon the retailer selling it.  AMD has said they are not going to be selling this Athlon 64 2800+ in a retail package — in fact they only intended to sell it to system builders due do a demand for a lower cost Athlon 64 processor.  The online retailers that you are seeing with this processor (you can see a couple on our PriceGrabber engine) have close ties to a major system builder (Newegg to ABS Computers) and can thus order a lot of processors from AMD in OEM fashion and then sell the extras online in OEM form.  In the end, the user gets an Athlon 64 processor for under $175; not too bad.

Specifications

Here’s a quick run down of the features of the Athon 64 2800+ processor being reviewed here.

  • Model: Athlon 64 2800+
  • Frequency: 1.8 GHz
  • L1 Cache: 128 KB
  • L2 Cache: 512 KB
  • Voltage: 1.5v
  • Process: 0.13 micron
  • Socket: Socket 754
  • Packaging: OEM only

System Setup and Benchmarks

Pentium 4 Test System Setup
CPU

1 x 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 (Prescott)
1 x 3.4 GHz Pentium 4 (Northwood)
1 x 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 (Northwood)

Motherboards Intel 875DP Motherboard
Chipset Drivers Intel INF
Memory 2 x 512MB Kingston DDR DRAM
Hard Drive 80 GB 7200 RPM IBM EIDE
Video Card ATI Radeon 9800XT
Video Drivers Catalyst 3.10

Operating System

Windows XP w/ Service Pack 1
 
Athlon 64 FX Test System Setup
CPU 1 x Athlon 64 FX-53 @ 2.4 GHz
1 x Athlon 64 FX-51 @ 2.2 GHz
Motherboards Asus SK8V K8T800 Motherboard
Chipset Drivers VIA Hyperion 4.51
Memory 2 x 512MB Corsair Micro DDR DRAM
Hard Drive 80 GB 7200 RPM IBM EIDE
Video Card ATI Radeon 9800XT
Video Drivers Catalyst 3.10

Operating System

Windows XP w/ Service Pack 1
 
Athlon 64 Test System Setup
CPU 1 x Athlon 64 2800+ @ 1.8 GHz
1 x Athlon 64 3000+ @ 2.0 GHz
1 x Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2.0 GHz
1 x Athlon 64 3400+ @ 2.2 GHz
Motherboards Abit KV8-MAX3 K8T800 Motherboard
Chipset Drivers VIA Hyperion 4.51
Memory 2 x 512MB Corsair Micro DDR DRAM
Hard Drive 80 GB 7200 RPM IBM EIDE
Video Card ATI Radeon 9800XT
Video Drivers Catalyst 3.10

Operating System

Windows XP w/ Service Pack 1
 
 
Benchmarks Used
 
SiSoft Sandra
AIDA32
Cachemem
Quake III: Arena
Unreal Tournament 2003
X2: The Threat
3D Mark 2001: SE
Business Winstone 2004
Content Creation Winstone 2004
PC Mark 2002
WinRAR
Lame MP3 Encoder
XMPEG/DivX Encoder
CineBench 2003
KribiBench 1.1
SPECviewperf 7.1
ScienceMark 2.0 Beta
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