AMD Desktop

All the talk now-a-days is about the X2 64-bit processors, but AMD is still paving the way with their 64-bit Athlons by gradually lowering its prices. We've noticed some decent price drops in the mid to high end CPUs. The recent drop in the 3800+ and 4000+ is what caught our eyes this week. The price drop was only around $25, but we're glad to finally see the elevated price on the higher end Athlon 64s come down a bit.



Furthermore, the A64 3500+ Venice [RTPE: ADA3500DAA4BW] core hit a new record low this week, dropping a whole $40. This is very surprising, as you can see from the chart; the 3500+ had actually increased in price and suddenly plummeted to about $185.


AMD Athlon 64 (939) 3500+ 512KB Venice

In our honest opinion, there is no real reason to build a computer based on the Socket 754 platform unless you are on an extremely tight budget. Socket 939 offers greater features such as dual channel memory support and a larger L2 cache. And, if you do plan on going with a Socket 754, make sure to go with a board that supports PCI-E because with that, you'll have a greater selection of newer generation graphics cards from which to choose. Nevertheless, for a consumer looking for a cheap upgrade, a Socket 754 might be the way to go. All the processors in this class have held their grounds fairly firm, showing only a slight progressive decline in price. Although at $130, the Athlon 64 3000+ Newcastle [RTPE: ADA3000AEP4AX] appears to be at a decent price and has also been slowly, but surely, dropping in price over the past couple of weeks.


AMD Athlon 64 (754) 3000+ 512KB Newcastle



Dual Core Desktops Sempron and Turion
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  • PrinceGaz - Saturday, October 29, 2005 - link

    "One of the 64-bit Semprons that caught our attention was the 2800+ Palermo core with 256MB L2 cache"

    A processor with that much cache would catch anyones attention :)
  • cryptonomicon - Saturday, October 29, 2005 - link

    ah beat me to it
  • JarredWalton - Monday, October 31, 2005 - link

    Okay, fixed now - I thought someone had already corrected it. Though, I'd really love such a CPU for that price. :D
  • MikeyJ79 - Saturday, October 29, 2005 - link

    Those 3800+ and 4000+ processors are looking more tempting by the week, though I would probably still get a cheaper model at this point. That socket 754 3700+ at ~$178 looks like an interesting buy for someone already stuck on that socket. Soon there may be the Mobile 4000+ with the Newark core which would be nice for current socket 754 users who are able to use it in their desktops. I doubt the price for it would be all that welcoming, however.
  • coomar - Saturday, October 29, 2005 - link

    the new skt 939 opteron's are creating an insane buzz, the better ones are doing 3.0+ ghz on air
  • kmmatney - Saturday, October 29, 2005 - link

    Has anyone tried a mobile Sempron with 1 MB cache:

    http://www.shentech.com/smn3000bix2ba.html">http://www.shentech.com/smn3000bix2ba.html

    Looks very interesting....
  • MikeyJ79 - Saturday, October 29, 2005 - link

    I wonder how they got one of those? ....LOL

    To their credit, though, they get the cache spec right further down in the listing. A 1MB L2 cache would mean it's not a Sempron anymore! :P
  • kmmatney - Saturday, October 29, 2005 - link

    I'm reall tempted to get a mobile Athlon 64 - 1 MB cache for around $100. Are there any benchmarks anywhere for the mobile Athlons used in a desktop?

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