The Athlon XP 2700+ represents a significant leap forward for the Athlon line – it solves a long-term problem by stepping up the default frontside bus (FSB) speed from 266MHz to 333MHz. This means that the Athlon XP can finally run in sync with 333MHz DDR RAM. While most currently available Athlon motherboards support 333MHz DDR, there is virtually no performance boost between this and 266MHz DDR when running an Athlon XP with a 266MHz FSB. The extra speed offered by the RAM quite simply goes to waste, because the CPU can't keep up with it.

An old standard, but one that still provides decent performance at a great price.

Looking to build your dream machine? We explore the latest components on the market, and give you advice on which ones to hunt down, along with the general price you can expect to pay for each major component.

The Athlon XP 2700+ represents a significant leap forward for the Athlon line – it solves a long-term problem by stepping up the default frontside bus (FSB) speed from 266MHz to 333MHz.

Eight new processors aimed at the low end of the market

An old PC is like putty in your hands. Tim Dean looks at how you can shape it into a new system with a few easy upgrades.

Nothing incredible in terms of design, but it’s an impressively cheap way to get quad-core in your PC.

While 64-bit computing has been around for a while (for the two of you who could afford Intel's Itanium, and now Itanium II processors), the dream of 64-bittery for the humble home system has been a long time coming.

All the details you wanted

Last year the Pentium 4 was beginning to show its true colours as a top performance desktop CPU, but it was still squarely outmatched in the value stakes by the new Athlon processor. DDR RAM was also becoming the standard, with SDRAM finally going the way of the extinct plankton, graptolites.

AMD is likely to shift production of desktop CPUs to 45nm process technology by the third quarter of 2009 and launch several new CPUs, say sources in the know.

The Athlon XP 3200+ will probably be the last Barton-core desktop processor to come from AMD before the launch later this year of the Athlon 64, its desktop 64-bit processor.

New AMD mobile chip could give Intel Atom a run for your money, if you're thinking of a mini notebook.

Intel unveils new laptop chips, while AMD launches its fastest desktop processors.

For our system, we wanted high performance without high cost. The performance issue immediately rules out Intels Celeron processors and AMDs Duron processors, although more wallet-conscious buyers wou

Chip giant AMD will launch its Congo platform for ultrathin notebooks at the end of October or the beginning of November, according to reports on Asian IT news site Digitimes.

The creme de la creme of Athlon 64 products, the 4000+ is a socket 939 CPU with all the bells and whistles. This bad boy clocks in at 2.4GHz, features a 1MB L2 cache and 2GB HyperTransport memory interconnect to work in conjunction with its on-die memory controller.

In the performance stakes the 3200+ came up trumps, finishing middle to top of the pack and clearly cementing itself as a solid performing processor for home, office or pure entertainment.