
The Athlon64 continues to gain in popularity since its September 2003 launch. One reason for this is that the processors are generally readily available; another, however, is that more and more manufacturers now make motherboards for the processor with Socket 754.
But that alone is not enough to justify the around $400 / €425 asking price for an Athlon64 3200+ - not exactly pocket change. AMD is aware of that fact and responded a few weeks ago with the Athlon64 3000+. It's a 3200+ with a pared down 512 kB L2 cache and the same 2.0 GHz clock speed. At $225 / €250, the price is the only thing they skimped on.
With the introduction of the 3400+, the product portfolio is now being rounded off at the upper end. From a technical standpoint, everything is as you'd expect: 1 MB L2 cache, DDR400 memory controller and a HyperTransport channel for communicating with the chipset. The processor speed is the only thing that's different, rising from 2.0 to 2.2 GHz to put it on a par with the clock rate of the Athlon64 FX-51.
- The Fours Have It: Athlon64 3400+ For 2004
- Athlon64 3400+ In Detail
- Cool & Quiet: Glad To See It, Too Bad It's Largely Ignored
- Overclocking: Looks Good!
- Test Setup
- Benchmark Results
- SPECviewperf 7.1
- SPECviewperf 7.1, Continued
- OpenGL Games: Serious Sam
- OpenGL Games: Wolfenstein Enemy Territory
- Synthetic: 3D Mark 2001 SE
- Games: Comanche 4
- Games: Unreal Tournament 2003
- Games: Splinter Cell
- Games: Warcraft III - The Frozen Thorne
- Synthetic: 3D Mark 2003
- Game: X2 - The Threat Rolling
- Game: Gun Metal
- Games: AquaMark3
- MPEG-Encoding: Main Concept MPEG-Encoder
- MPEG-Encoding: Pinnacle Studio 8.8
- MPEG-Encoding: Xmpeg & Divx 5.1 Pro
- MPEG-Encoding: Windows Media Encoder 9
- MPEG-Encoding: MS Movie Maker 2
- Magix MP3 Maker 2004 Diamond
- Lame MP3 Encoder
- Steinberg Nuendo 2
- Sysmark 2002
- Winrar 3.2
- Newtek Lightwave 7.5
- Cinema 4D XL 8.1
- 3D Studio Max 5.1
- Mathematica 5
- PC Mark 2002 Pro
- SiSoft Sandra Max 3
- Conclusion: More Speed Is Good