Yet unannounced microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices – AMD Athlon 64 3000+ – have shown up in various stores all around the world. The chips, however, do not feature the same specifications as their predecessors – the Athlon 64 3200+ microprocessors.

In an attempt to cover mainstream desktop segments with its 64-bit technology, Advanced Micro Devices planned to roll-out some new AMD64 processor at substantially lower price-point than any other 64-bit CPUs – AMD Athlon 64 3200+ and AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 available today. The formal announcement was planned to take place at a later date, but a plethora of stores sell the chips now.

Picture by Akiba PC Hotline

The AMD Athlon 64 3000+ processors run at 2.00GHz, the same speed as the higher-end Athlon 64 3200+ chip. But the less expensive CPU incorporates only 512KB of level-two cache – only a half of 1MB L2 cache provided by the Athlon 64 3200+. Both AMD64microprocessors incorporate 128KB of L1 cache and one Hyper-Transport link with aggregate bandwidth of 6.40GB/s to communicate with PC I/O. The new 3000+ 64-bit processor builds-in single-channel PC3200 controller.

Picture by Akiba PC Hotline. Please click to enlarge.

AMD also supplies Athlon 64 3000+ chip for desktop replacement notebooks, but those chips feature 1MB of L2 and run at 1.80GHz speed. According to recently unveiled AMD CPU roadmap for 2004, AMD is going to replace the 64-bit chips based on ClawHammer core featuring 1MB of cache with CPUs packing only 512KB of L2 based on Newcastle core.

Picture by Akiba PC Hotline

Even though AMD Athlon 64 CPUs work on lower core-clocks compared to some of AMD Athlon XP processors, the new 64-bit chips may bring additional performance in real-world applications due to more efficient architecture, SSE2 support as well as eventual benefit the software may take from AMD’s 64-bit extensions. It is positive that AMD decided not to lower core-clocks of the 3000+ chips below 2.00GHz, however, the performance impact of removing 512KB of cache is not clear.

The AMD Athlon 64 processor in 3000+ flavor for desktop computing is available in Japan as well as in stores listed by Dealtime.Xbitlabs.com and is priced at $270 in Japan and at about $250 in the USA.

All the AMD64 microprocessors, such as Opteron, Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX, are made using 0.13 micron fabrication process with Silicon On Insulator (SOI) technology in AMD’s advanced Fab30 in Dresden, Germany. AMD had some problems with increasing core-speed of its 64-bit products, nevertheless, it looks like now that company can ramp products at 2.00GHz speed without serious cost issues.

Early next year AMD is expected to release faster versions of its 64-bit chips, namely AMD Athlon 64 3400+ , AMD Athlon FX-53 CPU as well as AMD Opteron processors at 2.40GHz.

As a rule, X-bit labs does not enquire for comments from official representatives at weekends, in early mornings or late afternoons.