Athlon 64 FX-57 CPU Review

The FX-57 is the fastest of the AMD Athlon 64 single core processors. It includes a megabyte of level 2 cache and runs at a clock speed of 2.8 GHz. Like other Athlon 64 chips, it also has 64K of level 1 data cache and 64K of L1 instruction cache and an on-chip memory controller. The FX-57 is available for the Socket 939 and requires 104 watts of power when fully loaded.

There is definitely a narrow gaming niche for this chip, but for other uses, the X2 dual core chips seem like bargains.

The Athlon 64 FX-57 is AMD's latest and greatest single-core enthusiast-oriented CPU, a 200MHz clock speed bump in an era when such an increase is becoming more of a rarity than a regular event. This single-core monster runs at 2.8GHz, which is awfully fast in the world of AMD K8 processors. It also packs a handful of revisions that make it more potent, clock for clock, than its predecessor, the FX-55.

The question is: does this chip, which may have the single fastest x86 CPU core ever, have any appeal compared to the slick new dual-core processors from AMD and Intel? We've compared it against a dozen competitors in order to find out.