AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition

Introduction:

Everyone recalls the few years that AMD's earliest AMD 64 socket 939 processors arrived. At the time they were simply the best single core processors to date and surprised everyone further because of the extra overclocking that could be gained from the cores. This success has been attributed to the on-die memory controllers rather than an external memory controller coupled with a chipset. Because of this design, a lot more memory bandwidth could be produced which simply equates in to greater performance whether video games or program applications.

That architecture was capable enough that AMD improved upon it with their X2 dual core series. To put in layman's terms, the same core was simply doubled on the processor die. And again, overclocking proved to be very, very profitable especially for benchmark users looking for that record score. Gamers really enjoyed having their dual core processors as well as professional users who appreciated the extra core for quicker execution. For gamers, it was about frames per second and for professionals, it was about productivity.

Within the last year, AMD decided to improve upon the X2 series with an improved Black Edition. The newest X2 now offers improved and revised features that the original X2 series offered. One specific feature that isn't directly mentioned is overclocking. Some of the comments from the field say that the processor has greater overclocking potential which is good news for enthusiasts who are looking for a really good deal for their AM2+ platform. The average overclock has been reported at around 3.1GHz without any manual voltage increases. Couple this with some capable DDR2 memory and the results should be top notch.

Now why would AMD release an AMD Athlon X2 5000+ Black Edition Processor? Try affordability and performance on for size. At a reasonable $115.00 for 2.6GHz of power running through two cores, this processor should be very capable of providing more than enough power for today's most graphic intensive games. Of course as with any of the newest processors, it should be teamed up with a good graphics card like the NVidia 8800 or ATI's newest series. This more affordable processor is basically AMD's way of thanking all of the people who have chosen and continue to choose AMD processors.

Specifications:

A Closer Look:

The X2 5000+ Black Edition Processor is fabricated with arguably one of AMD's best 65nm dual cores, code named: Brisbane. The Black Edition boasts a low power consumption of just 65 Watts which means even lower thermal production which increases the chances of successful overclocking.

The processor offers the standard 512KB L2 Cache per core for a 1MB total. Early revisions of the X2 line offered 2 x 1MB L2 Cache which wasn't completely necessary for optimal performance. The performance differences between the two were so little that slimming down the processor's Cache helped bring about more affordability.

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The features the X2 5000 Black Edition offer aren't entirely brand new all around, just updated and improved. A few of the upgrades are lower power consumption of course, lower thermal production, improved fabrication, and unlocked CPU Mulitpliers. Another improved feature is better virus protection from any rare, but destructive virus that can shut your processor down or severally degrade your system's overall performance.

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Lower power consumption often equates in to lower heat generated by the processor. Heat is the number one killer of processors other than things like dropping the processor, static discharge, and out right physical abuse. A great deal of users have lost their processor to extreme heat from poor heat sink mounting and even overclocking. However, lower power and heat usually also mean a better overclock can be maintained over comparably powered processors. The regular X2 series don't quite have this feature, though they aren't poor performers by any means.

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