A clock increase of 200 MHz cannot radically change the performance of the Athlon 64 X2 series, and the debut of the 6000+ confirms this. Although the new processor is able to increase the performance levels of AMD Athlon processors, it doesn’t change performance levels to such an extent that they will completely counter Intel’s high-end Core 2 Duo processors. Logically, though, this should be expected as AMD is currently a processor generation behind.

Again AMD has released its newest processor at a lower price point than expected. Although it was originally expected to debut in the $600 range, AMD lowered the figure right before the official February 20 launch. As such, the new Athlon 64 X2 6000+ comes at 464 USD, a price that is cheaper than the Core 2 Duo E6700.

Our Moneybench results also show the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ have a price to performance ratio very similar to the Core 2 Duo E6700.

For the next six months the desktop processor market will remain nearly completely stagnant, save for a few minor additoins. Because of this, we can expect to see AMD further lower the price of its processors in the coming months. Only with the release of the K10 architecture can we really expect to see AMD start chugging out some real solid competition against Intel. The decision of buying the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ therefore lies solely on the consumer. AMD’s aggressive pricing is keeping the company in the game, and therefore you see many low priced socket AM2 processors.