I love the smell of burning non-disclosure agreements in the morning.... (with apologies to Apocalypse Now)
Yes my friends, its time for another processor review here at Neoseeker. This time we are taking a look at the latest high end performance processor from AMD - the FX-60.
The FX-60 is a first for AMD - it is the first time that they have released a dual core FX series processor. That's right, this is an FX series processor featuring two 2.6GHz cores. In essence it's a dual core variant of the FX-55. Some might think that it is a step back - after all, the FX-57 was a single core 2.8GHz part - however with software vendors scrambling to re-work their software to be multi-threaded, the days of single core processors holding the performance crown are limited.
The FX-60 has an impressive list of features:
Two 2.6GHz cores
AMD64 instruction set, with legacy 32 bit support for existing software
3DNow! / SSE / SSE2 / SSE3 support
1MB of L2 cache per core
64KB code and 64KB data L1 cache per processor
high-speed on-chip DDR controller for PC1600..PC3200 memory
128 bit memory bus (dual 64 bit DDR channels) up to 6.4GB/sec bandwidth
one 2GHz Hypertransport link (8GB/sec bandwidth)
939 pint micro-PGA packaging
90nm SOI (Silicon on Insulator) technology
233.2M transistors
199mm2 die size
1.30-1.35V core voltage
maximum 110W thermal power
maximum 65'C case temperature
maximum Icc of 39.8A
minimum 1.2GHz processor frequency with Cool and Quiet
$1,031 PIB price
Now those are impressive specifications for this processor. But does it perform? We'll find out later in this review.