PC Stats published a review of the AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ 65nm Processor which comes clocked at a cool 2.5 GHz, with a 12.5x CPU clock multiplier (12.5 x 200 MHz = 2500 MHz). Each core in this dual core Athlon64 X2 4800+ CPU has a 128KB L1 cache along with a 512KB L2 cache. This is a bit different from what AMD did with its Socket 939 series Athlon64 X2 4800+, it ran at 2.4 GHz and had 1MB L2 cache per core.

At 173W (total system power draw) with both cores running at 100%, the 65nm Athlon64 X2 4800+ system uses 4W less energy than the 90nm Athlon64 X2 5000+ with only one core maxed out! The Athlon64 X2 4800+ system consumes 70W less than the Intel Pentium D 940 test rig. Aside from the die shrink from 90nm to 65nm, the AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ has no significant advancements over previous Socket AM2 Athlon64 processors. AMD has increased the L2 cache latency a bit, in preparation for larger L2 cache K8 processors coming down the pipeline. When we will see these beasts materialize is not known. This does however mean that clock for clock the 65nm processors are just slightly slower than its 90nm counterparts, but as an end user, you won't be able to tell the difference.

As we saw in the benchmarks the Socket AM2 AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ processor is pretty quick around the track. It slots itself right behind the Athlon64 X2 5000+, exactly where we expect it. The chip offers up good performance for the money. The 65 nm Athlon64 X2 4800+ was a pretty good overclocker, hitting 3.03 GHz in PCSTATS tests. With a retail price of $253 CDN ($215 US, £112GBP) the AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ is a good balance between performance and value. Its small energy efficient gains will make it less expensive to run in the long term, but with the energy efficiencies posed by the Core 2 Duo, you have to wonder if this is almost a moot point.