Athlon64 3700+
Unfortunately, AMD did not provide this processor for testing, so it remains questionable whether the 3700+ has an adequate QuantiSpeed rating. The 2.2 GHz Socket 754 Athlon64 is called 3400+, while the dual channel version for Socket 939 with 1 GHz HyperTransport and 2.4 GHz core speed is 3800+. Although the 3700+ comes with 1 MB cache, we really doubt its performance comes that close to the 3800+.
Anyway, that is the new top model for Socket 754. The thermal specifications do not differ from those of 3800+ and FX-53, and its price tag of $710, which certainly does not make it a bargain, is also in the same league.
Athlon64 3800+
The new Athlon64 3800+ runs at 2.4 GHz and allows for performance that comes very close to the Athlon 64 FX-53.
Now we come to the top model of AMD's Athlon64 family (except for the FX). The 3800+ is exclusively made for Socket 939, runs at 2.4 GHz and has a 512 kB L2 cache. At $720 per 1,000 unit quantities, it is the much better choice than the 3700+ for Socket 754. You get dual channel memory and 1 GHz HyperTransport, which makes up for the smaller cache size. As you will see in the benchmark section, the 3800+ performs almost the same as the Athlon64 FX-53. In certain benchmarks, the non-registered memory will even enable superior performance.
