The Athlon 64 3400+ is quite frankly, the fastest CPU I’ve ever tested. I haven’t spent any time with a FX51 CPU, nor a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.2 GHz, so I can’t comment on those CPUs. From Anandtech’s 3400+ review, however, it’s pretty clear that the Athlon 64 3400+ is in that same performance class for about ½ the price.

I’ll be honest. I’ve preferred Intel CPUs in my computers since the first 286-12 computer I owned back in 1990. I’ve gone from the 286-12 to a Pentium 120 MHz to a Pentium 2 300 to a Pentium 3 600 to the 3.0 Pentium 4 CPU that I use in my main computer today. But that changes with the Athlon 64 3400+.

AMD’s Athlon 64 3400, is a good introduction. With a projected price tag of $413 retail for the Athlon 64 3400+ CPU, that makes this over $300 cheaper than the Athlon FX51 CPU in which the main difference is the 128-bit memory bus versus the 64-bit bus on the Athlon 64. This also puts the 3400+ squarely competitive with Intel’s Pentium 4 3.2 GHz CPU (non EE).

I can recommend this CPU after extended testing on the test platform and AMD Athlon 64 motherboards based upon Nvidia, ALi and VIA chipsets (ALi Magik 8). The SOYO CK8 Dragon Plus is currently one of the fastest Athlon 64 motherboards I’ve ever seen, slightly over clocking the CPU by default. With across the board performance leads over the 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 in gaming tests, and close performance in the system benchmark tests like SYSmark and PCmark, the 3400+ is an excellent competitor to Intel’s 3.2 GHz Pentium 4.

If you’re looking for the best buy in AMD Athlon 64 CPUs, however, I would suggest the Athlon 64 3000+ Newcastle that was quietly released by AMD recently. The main differences between the 3400+ and 3200+ Athlon 64s and the 3000+ CPU is the Level 2 cache being 512KB instead of 1MB and the clock speed, with the 3000+ and 3200+ being 2.0 GHz and the 3400+ being 2.2 GHz. The price of this CPU is around $215 on Newegg currently, which makes it ½ the cost of the 3400+ and less than 1/3 the cost of the FX51 2.2 GHz CPU.

So what does 64-bit computing mean to the average user? What does it mean to the gamer? For right now, there aren’t many games or applications that take full advantage of the 64-bit instruction set. In fact, until Microsoft releases the 64-bit edition of Windows, most users will be stuck with a faster CPU in 32 bit applications, not that that’s a bad thing.

As to how the CPU race this year is going to be? I have no clue. Prescott was originally slated for last year from Intel. AMD’s next core will be based upon the FX53 which will replace the dual channel FX51 very shortly. Later in the year, AMD plans to introduce CPUs based on 90nm process, and that hopefully means that they’ll break above the 2.2 GHz barrier in a big way. I’m not a fortune teller, but I can say that 64-bit CPUs that perform as fast as or faster than their 32-bit counterparts in 32-bit applications is a good thing for the future, when applications and games will take advantage of 64-bit computing, the AMD CPUs will be there ready for them.