X2 3800+? What's that?

AMD's Athlon 64 was a big hit for desktop users and gamers and took advantage of specific 64bit code where available and supported. In 2005 AMD entered the foray of next gen processors with its first dual core cpu. The term dual core refers to the two independent 64bit cores on the same die effectively giving two processors a place on a single motherboard socket.

The technical stuff

Skt 939
2.4 Ghz
512 Mb Level 2 cache
Ram DDR 266, 333 and 400 Mhz
128 Bit memory controller
90 Nm fabrication
154 Million transistor count
Nominal voltage 1.35v
Max thermal output 89 Watts

Basic Benchmarks

Averages dependant on system:

Sandra drystone Mips avg 18572/18547
Sandra whetstone MFLOPS avg 6342/6327
Sandra whetstone SSE2 MFLOPS avg 8268/8228
3D Mark 2001 avg 9921/10448
wPrime avg 42.86/43.02

Real world difference

Well I swapped brands from Intels Skt 478 P4 3.0Ghz to AMD's A64 and again to the X2. The AMD chips were both better suited to my system set up which at the time consisted of an Asus AVM-NM motherboard and 2 Gb of Corsair dual channel DDR400. I have to say that the two AMD chips were closely matched on most applications though Windows itself is notoriously greedy in terms of consuming valuable system resources. In programs with dual core optimization routines there was a significant increase in performance and some games were seeing increased frame rates, particularly FPS's. Again this is really dependent on your system spec and configuration.

Summary

Very good CPU and despite the migration to AM2 there are still a good variety of speed ranges still available. Good buy for second or third system but will still run a primary machine with plenty of RAM.