A Planned and Surprise Release

The last time we reviewed a processor from AMD was back on September 23rd and that was for the launch of the first Athlon 64 processor, the 3200+. Since then AMD has been somewhat quiet in all major aspects, that is until today.

The last time we reviewed a processor from AMD was back on September 23rd and that was for the launch of the first Athlon 64 processor, the 3200+. Since then AMD has been somewhat quiet in all major aspects, that is until today. Today’s big news is the official release of the Athlon 64 3400+, but a silent release came a few weeks ago with the Athlon 64 3000+ processor. No one in the media (as far as I know) got more than a couple days advance notice of this processor release and no samples were sent out ahead of time, which is unusual.

Athlon 64 3400+

The 3400+ processor released today is one that we have been expecting since the initial release of the Athlon 64 3200+ and the Athlon 64 FX-51 processor. Running at 2.2 GHz with a full 1 MB of L2 cache, the 3400+ is the next-step upgrade to the original Athlon 64 core. Besides gaining 200 MHz in clock speed and a slightly higher Vcore, the Athlon 64 3400+ has no technical changes from the 3200+

Athlon 64 3000+

The Athlon 64 3000+ processor is a slightly different story. It runs at the 2.0 GHz, the same frequency as the Athlon 64 3200+, but with only has 512 KB of L2 cache enabled. At first glance, this may seem to be a partially disabled 3200+ processor. A few rumors have been circulating on whether these chips are merely cores from the Athlon 64 3200+ batches that didn’t make the cut of L2 cache testing. If this is the case, that would explain why the AMD roadmaps didn’t include the processor until after its release, and why the media was given no real notification of its coming.

Which is a shame too, as you’ll see, it does quite well in the benchmarks all at a considerably lower cost.

Athlon 64 3400+ and 3000+ Review - Processors 29

From left to right, the current Athlon 64 line-up: 3400+, 3200+, 3000+.

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