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Performance? There's lots of it. But you need to know how to treat this CPU to really get the most out of it. If AMD do what they did and give it to OEM's first, they are keeping the CPU out of its natural habitat. In this reviewers opinion, it's wasted in an OEM box where someone will give it some email, the odd game and a few hours a week of media encoding to do.
Enthusiasts need this CPU. The overclockers, the DivX encoders that like to push their systems to get those movie rip times down, the SETI runners that need the top spot in their team and consistent sub 3hr WU's.
They are the ones that know how to unlock it, drop the multiplier and push the front side bus up and open up the taps a bit.
That's made all the more apparent by the overclocks one can expect with one of these chips. Kyle over at [H]ardOCP hasn't exactly kept a lid on his recent 2.4GHz+ benchmarks for his look at the Radeon 9700 Pro. I can pretty much guarantee you they were done on air and if I'm wrong, I think he got a poor sample.
They run a lot cooler than XP2200.
This CPU is benchable, although not 100% stable 24/7 at 2.4Ghz using quiet air cooling (Swiftech MCX462 and 7v Panaflo L1A) at 1.85V on the EPoX 8K5A2+. 2.4 stable wouldn't be too much of a hassle. The 8K3A+ managed slightly lower at around 2.38GHz for most tasks. So it's board dependant bu bear in mind the cooling (a Taisol 760 for heavens sake on the 8K3A, hardly an Alpha 8045) I was using, ~2.4GHz was quite nice I think you'll admit.
It's a return to the enthusaists domain for AMD with this CPU, although the wealthy enthusiasts only for a little while. XP2400+'s are pretty much the same CPU so expect them to hit the same heights. It's a new revision of the core, so XP2400+ and XP2600+ can be considered as equals for the time being until proven otherwise.
If you get one of these, unlock it, cool it well, feed it memory bandwidth, have the fastest box on the block. Only the big P4 boys will catch you.
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