The Athlon 64 FX-57 is like a finely tuned Formula 1 racecar; a piece of performance hardware that has been designed from the ground up for one purpose only - the need for speed. The Athlon 64 FX-57 is certainly a demon on the desktop highway, and is the fastest gaming processor money can buy, but it's not an across the board victory. The new dual core processors from AMD and Intel have created a whole new playing field for multi-threaded application performance, most notably media encoding. In this area, even the powerful Athlon 64 FX-57 must take a back seat to the Athlon 64 X2 and Pentium EE 840, and in some cases, even the high-speed Pentium 4 models with Hyper-Threading support. Still, 2.8 GHz of Athlon 64 FX power keeps the processor very competitive, but the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ may present more of a well-rounded desktop alternative.
The Athlon 64 FX-57 makes its entrance with a retail price of just over $1K, and joins the Athlon 64 FX-55, which is priced at just over $800, at the high-end of the AMD single core processor line. The Athlon 64 FX-57 is certainly priced at the bleeding edge, and is coincidentally right on par with the retail cost of both the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and Pentium Extreme Edition 840 processors. Suddenly, things are getting mighty crowded at the $1K price level, with the ultra high-end single and dual core models from Intel and AMD fighting it out.
If ultra fast gaming performance is the ultimate goal, then there is no desktop processor on the planet that can offer higher framerates or smoother gameplay. The Athlon 64 FX-57 is simply the best of the best, and nothing from AMD or Intel can catch it. This type of "money is no object" enthusiast product enjoys a small niche market, but we still applaud AMD for filling the market need, even if the retail price gives us plebes a case of sticker shock. For our money, the dual core Athlon 64 X2 still looks like the cream of the processor crop, especially if you use your desktop for anything but gaming. This is the future, and the combination of 2.2-2.4 GHz clock speeds, ultra smooth multi-tasking and killer multi-threading performance is a tough act to beat.
* Please note that these prices were taken at the time of review and are not meant to reflect long-term trends.
The Athlon 64 FX-57 may seem like a basic 200 MHz speed increase for AMD's top-end enthusiast line, but it actually represents a bit more. Now that the Athlon 64 X2 dual core is running at a full 2.4 GHz, this latest release not only cements AMD as owner of the fastest gaming processor, but also puts a bit more daylight between the Athlon 64 FX and X2 lines. AMD also seems be thumbing its nose at Intel, first by releasing a stellar Athlon 64 X2 dual core, and then blatantly pumping out a 2.8 GHz speed demon to rub a bit more salt in the wound. But at the end of the day, we always come back to price and performance, and there is little doubt that you can get more value by picking CPUs a bit lower on the tree. Of course, the Athlon 64 FX buyer has never been one to worry about his wallet, and for this specific "performance-or-bust" market, AMD has delivered again.
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