New Processors

With the exception of a few audio and video encoding benchmarks, the Athlon 64 FX-60 represents the new device to beat as far as performance goes, thanks to its two processing cores. This superlative also applies to our multitasking benchmarks. If you intend to use either ATI or NVIDIA's multi GPU platform (Crossfire and SLI respectively), this processor is a great choice for the best-possible 3D gaming experience.

Given that we have already seen the decrease in power consumption achieved by the 65 nm Cedar Mill, the results of the double core counterpart Presler are about what everybody would expect. Not only does the new chip run both slightly faster and cooler, it will allow Intel to go after higher clock speeds while maintaining its thermal envelopes (95 W or 130 W max).