AMD’s FX range of processors has been the top of the enthusiasts heap for several years now. The Athlon 64 FX line began in September 2003 with the FX-51, as a variant of the Athlon 64 architecture.

Now, with the company’s introduction of dual-core processing last year, it was only natural that the latest FX CPU would feature it. The FX-60 is set to be the company’s last processor for the existing Socket 939, as they ready a new architecture, named Socket AM2, with 940 pins and support for faster DDR2 RAM.
This is an ‘enthusiast-level’ processor, which is designed to take advantage of the few programs that support multi-threading. Its dual cores are clocked at 2.6GHz, which will also speed up multitasking. So if you’re converting video for your iPod, you’ll be able to continue as normal, rather than making your computer grind to a halt.
We used the FX-60 in our system over the course of a week, and didn’t really notice much difference in day-to-day tasks over the existing 3000+. And by running several benchmarks we also failed to see much difference in performance.
The latest fad in games is for High-Dynamic Range (HDR) lighting, which can really tax your system. And 3DMark06 is a good tester for such effects. The FX-60, coupled with Asus’s 7800GTX graphics card, managed 4223 marks, but while this may sound impressive, changing the processor back to a 3000+ managed a healthy 3775 marks. It’s obvious that the card is doing most of the work here. A 500 point difference is not too bad on such a graphics intensive test, but if games are your thing then a video card upgrade is a better option.
For a more real world test, PC Mark 04 managed a very respectable 4771 marks which is perhaps the highest score we’ve ever seen for this benchmark.
The FX-60 is not what you’d call a value-for-money proposition, as it’s priced at an RRP of $1750. You can get two laptops for that price, and we don’t feel that the performance quite justifies the cost. But then, the FX series has never been about value, only the ultimate in pants-wetting performance. And there is the rub, in some benchmarks, it’s outdone by its predecessor the FX-57, which is only a single core. Nevertheless, as many independent reviewers have suggested, this is still the most powerful processor on the planet for many tasks, and no matter how incremental the benefits, this is the one to get if you must have the best.

AMD FX-60 Processor | $1750 |
For: Most powerful CPU available; dual-core processing aids multi-tasking; great for multimedia tasks.
Against: Expensive; poor bang-for-buck; few supported applications; overkill for office use.
Verdict: If speed is important, there’s no contest, this is the processor to get. But for most tasks, similar performance is available for three quarters of this price in the FX-57.