AMD X2

Author:  Jason Jacobs Date:  2005.05.09 Topic:  Processors Provider:  AMD Manufacturer:  AMD

Final Thoughts

As consumers we won't truely realize the potential of the X2 unless running an application with dual processor support. The availability of dual core processors to the public from both AMD and Intel will push the development of these applications into the mainstream before long. It's doubtful that AMD and Intel would have put a product on the market such as this without having partners and developers lined up to provide support for these products. Add that to the mix the fact that gamers have traditionally pushed the performance market ever higher and you have a combination that will soon see support for dual core in the majority of games and desktop applications before long. Until then you wont see tangible improvements in performance unless you typically work with applications that are workstation oriented and support multi-threading and multi-cpu configurations, such as:

As a company AMD has proven it has its customers in mind with a clear upgrade path and continually answering the desires of its customers. There has been no doubt for a while now that although Intel wears the speed crown, it's AMD that wears the performance crown. With the release of the X2 we at Techwarelabs wouldn't be surprised if the engineers at AMD are fed protein shakes every day in order to come up with products that perform like this. It's our guess the competition may have spent too much time in the space suits and are suffering from lack of oxygen.

Purchase Worthy?

The Athlon X2 will have a ripple effect on current AMD 64 processors driving down the price. This is good for the majority of consumers as the X2 won't find its place in many consumers homes due to price and current support. It was smart of AMD to keep the X2 as a socket 939 providing current and future consumers an upgrade path in the future. If you are a gamer your best option is still the existing line of AMD 64 single core processors which offer the best bang for the buck. Save the extra $500 for a top of the line video card and you will be comparing FPS with the best out there.

Purchase the X2 if you are a workstation user or a performance minded consumer who wants to squeeze outrageous performance out of one processor instead of buying two and getting less. You will be getting bar none, best performance ever found in a single chip solution.

The X2 is without a doubt the fastest, highest performance processor Techwarelabs has ever tested.