AMD’s next generation of CPUs brings 45nm technology and higher clock speeds - but is that enough to compete with Intel’s latest and greatest?

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.

The move to a new platform brings credible new challengers to Intel’s Core 2 processors

A smartly engineered processor, but for today’s applications it’s lacking in bang per buck.

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

While Intel is rolling out new designs, AMD's focus is on getting the most out of its existing Phenom II process. The AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black edition is just what the doctor ordered.

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

As you can see from the performance table, Core i7 is still a safe bet in terms of sheer speed, though the case for AMD is not as simple as that.

The FX-55 is AMD's top performer. It's a 2.6GHz beast that will eat through current and future games and applications. Its architecture is based on that of the FX-53, which in turn was based on the first generation FX-51, and AMD has come a long way in bringing 64-bit to the desktop.

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.

Upgrade to an AM2 Athlon 64 system now

A capable little package at an attractive price

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.

VIA has dominated the AMD arena the last couple of years, and its latest offering is the KT400 chipset, which despite its name, only officially handles DDR333 memory. Many boards however do have limited support for DDR400, as well as AGP 8x.

The nForce2 is the only dual-channel memory controller available in the AMD pantheon. There are two Northbridges to choose from: one with the Integrated GeForce4 MX-class graphics (nForce2 GT) and one without (nForce2 ST). Both offer support for AGP 8x and up to DDR400 memory, although we recommend you use DDR266 or DDR333 memory in synchronous mode (DDR266 for chips with a 266MHz FSB, DDR333 for those with a 333MHz FSB) for best performance.

Legend QDI

ABIT's new NVIDIA nForce2 motherboard, the NF7-S, supports the AMD Duron, Athlon, and Athlon XP, and also features dual 400MHz DDR memory controllers.

A decent board, but the Hybrid SLI feature doesn’t justify the high asking price

An uninspiring board with no strong selling point

Cheap, but there’s not much here to cheer about