The Athlon 64 X2 is the first dual-core desktop CPU manufactured by AMD. It is essentially a processor composed of two Athlon 64 cores joined together on one die with some additional control logic. The cores share one dual-channel memory controller, are based on the E-stepping model of Athlon 64 and, depending on the model, have either 512 or 1024 Kb of L2-Cache per core

Most users will ask themselves, which processor or platform should they invest in. Nowadays, the Intel Core2Duo platform has many enthusiasts, offering very good performance and great overclocking abilities. To answer which CPU a user should buy, we could start by checking today's prices for both Intel and AMD processors:

Users have many options, depending on how much they intend to spend for a new PC system. For a cheap system, the AMD X2 3800+ is very affordable, combined with a good motherboard and of course DDR2 memory. At the same price as the AMD X2 4600+, we find the Intel Core2Duo E6400, which unfortunately we don't have in our labs for testing so as to provide a complete overview and compare differences. We compare the % CPU raw performance from all tests and weigh it against retail price, in the following table:

From our test results, the Intel Core2Duo XE6800 and E6600 are around 55% and 29% faster than an AMD X2 4660 respectively. On the other hand, the Intel XE6800 is 304% more expensive than the AMD X2 4600+. A rather awkward purchase, unless you want to have the absolute fastest (stock speeds) processor. On the other hand, the Intel Core2Duo E6600 is "only" 29.05% faster but 38.30% more expensive. Of course, Intel's E6600 is a favorite among users, for its excellent overclocking abilities. A more fair comparison would be with Intel's E6400 (2MB cache). We estimate it would be less than 10% faster than the X2 4600.

AMD's AM2 socket offers very good memory performance which was confirmed in most of our tests. A direct impact of this was seen in the performance of the tested games. In most cases, the AMD X2 4600+ is very close to the E6600, meaning if gaming is your number one priority, an AMD Athlon processor can cover your needs. Passing over to the overclocking area, the CPU can improve its performance with overclocking, but the AMD X2 4600+ can only be rated as an average performer, since we only managed to get a stable system at 224FSB, with our Asus M2N32 WS Pro motherboard. It’s very possible that with a different motherboard, overclocking could be improved, but in any case, cannot be compared with what the Core2Duo series offer. We have seen reports of the Intel E6600, reaching 3.60GHz with of course specific configurations of motherboard and memory settings.

Concluding our presentation, the AMD Athlon X2 AM2 platform, is a good gaming platform, with admirable overclocking abilities, but after the arrival of Intel's Core2Duo processors, cannot be considered as one of the fastest processors. Perhaps the arrival of the upcoming 4x4 Quad Core AMD processors will change that, but only future can tell.