The Last of the K8: The AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ - Hardware Upgrade

Before delving further into the review, we want to provide a brief recap of the processors currently available for sale and discuss their features.

The following table shows the technical characteristics of Intel's current lineup of processors.

Processor	Number of Cores	Clock	Bus	L2 Cache	multiplicator	manufacturing process	Socket	TDP
Core 2 Extreme QX6700	4	2.67 GHz	1,066 MHz	2x4M	10x	65 nm	775 LGA	130 Watt
Core 2 Quad Q6600	4	2.4 GHz	1,.066 MHz	2x4M	9x	65 nm	775 LGA	105 Watt
Core 2 Extreme X6800	2	2.,93 GHz	1,066 MHz	4M	11x	65 nm	775 LGA	75 Watt
Core 2 Duo E6700	2	2.67 GHz	1,066 MHz	4M	10x	65 nm	775 LGA	65 Watt
Core 2 Duo E6600	2	2.4 GHz	1,066 MHz	4M	9x	65 nm	775 LGA	65 Watt
Core 2 Duo E6400	2	2.13 GHz	1,066 MHz	2M	8x	65 nm	775 LGA	65 Watt
Core 2 Duo E6300	2	1.86 GHz	1,066 MHz	2M	7x	65 nm	775 LGA	65 Watt
Core 2 Duo E4300	2	1.,8 GHz	800 MHz	2M	9x	65 nm	775 LGA	65 Watt

All the processors use a quad-pumped 1,033 MHz front side bus. The only exception is the E4300 which uses an 800 MHz FSB. In addition, all of the CPUs use a unified cache, with a total L2 cache of 2MB for the E6400, E6300, and E4300. The remaining CPUs all have a 4MB L2 cache. The two quad-core architectures from Intel are, however, slightly different. This is because they have 2 separate 4 MB L2 caches, adding up to a total of 8 MB. The QX6700/Q6600 are this way simply because Intel placed two dual-core die side by side on the same package to create a total of four cores. Each die has a shared cache of 4 MB.

The declared TDP of all Intel Core 2 Duo models is 65 Watts. The only exception is the Core 2 Extreme X6800 which is declared at 75 watts. The TDP grows larger for the quad-core chips. The Core 2 Quad Q6600 has a TDP of 105 watts, while the Core 2 Extreme QX6700 has one of 130 watts. These values are quite impressive compared to the 130 watt TDP of the dual-core Pentium D. In theory, this means that Intel has been able to halve the TDP of its processors while also increasing their performance.

In December AMD officially launched the first Athlon 64 X2 processors manufactured using a 65nm process. The models are the Athlon 64 X2 5000+, 4800+, 4400+ and 4000+. They all have 512kb L2 cache per core. The use of a smaller manufacturing process has not affected the amount of transistors on each chip. The number is still at 145 million transistors. The surface area of the die, however, has been reduced to 126 mm2 . As a result of the die shrinkage, the declared TDP has also been reduced from 89 watts to 65 watts.

Processor	Number of Cores	Clock	HT Bus	L2 Cache	Multiplier	Manufacturing Process	Socket	TDP
Athlon 64 X2 6000+	2	3 GHz	1 GHz	2x1 Mbyte	15x	90 nm	AM2	125 Watt
Athlon 64 FX62	2	2.8 GHz	1 GHz	2x1 Mbyte	14x	90 nm	AM2	125 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 5600+	2	2.8 GHz	1 GHz	2x1 Mbyte	14x	90 nm	AM2	89 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 5400+	2	2.8 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	14x	90 nm	AM2	89 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 5200+	2	2.6 GHz	1 GHz	2x1 Mbyte	13x	90 nm	AM2	89 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 5000+	2	2.6 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	13x	90 nm	AM2	89 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 5000+	2	2.6 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	13x	65 nm	AM2	65 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 4800+	2	2.5 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	12.5x	65 nm	AM2	65 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 4600+	2	2.4 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	12x	90 nm	AM2	89 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 4600+ EE	2	2.4 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	12x	90 nm	AM2	65 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 4400+	2	2.3 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	11.5x	65 nm	AM2	65 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 4200+	2	2.2 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	11x	90 nm	AM2	89 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 4200+ EE	2	2.2 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	11x	90 nm	AM2	65 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 4000+	2	2.1 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	10.5x	65 nm	AM2	65 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 3800+	2	2 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	10x	90 nm	AM2	89 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ EE	2	2 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	10x	90 nm	AM2	65 Watt
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ EESFF	2	2 GHz	1 GHz	2x512 Kbytes	10x	90 nm	AM2	35 Watt

As the table shows, AMD has also released some more energy efficient chips that are manufactured using a 90nm process. These chips are indicated by AMD as Energy Efficient (EE) and Energy Efficient Small Form Factor (EESFF). Respectively, they have a 65 watt TDP and a 35 watt TDP. Although the 65nm processors have the same declared TDP as the EE series, AMD has chose not to use the acronym for the new processors.

It is important to remember than any AMD processor with an odd divider results in the memory actually working at a lower speed than what it is rated at. The reason behind this lies in the way the memory bus clock is calculated. For AMD Athlon processors, the divider is half the CPU multiplier. Now when the divider ends up being odd, what happens is that it is rounded up. For example, the Athlon 64 X2 5200+ has a multiplier of 13. Halved, the divider is 6.5. Since the AMD64 memory bus does not work with decimal numbers, the divider is then rounded up to the next highest number, which is in this case 7. Thus, a DDR2-800 memory module would end up working at 733 MHz DDR speeds ( (DDR2-800; 2,400 MHz / 7). This creates a situation in which the lower memory speeds could potentially have a negative impact on the overall system performance.

Below is a table that shows the processors along with their dividers and memory frequencies with DDR2-800 modules:

Processor	Clock	Divider	Memory Frequency DDR2-800
Athlon 64 X2 6000+	3 GHz	8	750 MHz
Athlon 64 FX62	2.8 GHz	7	800 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 5600+	2.8 GHz	7	800 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 5400+	2.8 GHz	7	800 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 5200+	2.6 GHz	7	743 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 5000+	2.6 GHz	7	743 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 5000+	2.6 GHz	7	743 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 4800+	2.5 GHz	7	714 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 4600+	2.4 GHz	6	800 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 4600+ EE	2.4 GHz	6	800 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 4400+	2.3 GHz	6	767 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 4200+	2.2 GHz	6	733 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 4200+ EE	2.2 GHz	6	733 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 4000+	2.1 GHz	6	700 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 3800+	2 GHz	5	800 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ EE	2 GHz	5	800 MHz
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ EESFF	2 GHz	5	800 MHz