Sunnyvale (CA) - AMD intends to hold the performance crown for desktop processors with today's introduction of the Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4 GHz) and FX-55 (2.6 GHz) processor.

Both new processors aim to lift the bar of performance of desktop computing and close the few gaps between the previous processor models and especially Intel's Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. Especially the FX-55, targeted at gamers, now takes the lead in most benchmarks, as a review of the processor revealed. The performance increase over the previous FX-53 is about five to ten percent in most disciplines.

According to the test results, the FX-55 gains more lead over the Pentium 4 processor family, beating the Extreme Edition in 3DMark, Doom 3, Far Cry, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Wolfenstein ET benchmarks. Only some synthetic benchmarks, 3DStudio Max and encoding applications like Windows Media Encoder 9 are still dominated by Intel's processors.

Intel announced last week to cancel the introduction of the Pentium 4
580J, a processor version clocked with four GHz. Instead, the company decided to allocate development resources rather to the dual-core versions of the processor, code-named Smithfield and scheduled to be launched in the third quarter of next year.

According to industry sources, AMD will keep increasing the processor speed in the coming months. The company has not publicly announced dual-core processor plans for the desktop, but it is widely speculated that AMD is targeting the second half of 2005 for such a launch.

Pricing for the Athlon 64 FX-55 processor is set at $827, the Athlon 64 processor 4000+ is priced at $729 (both in 1000-unit quantities).
in 1000-unit quantities).

Read the review of the processors .