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Dual-core processors have been a very hot topic as of late. One of the biggest gripes was the high prices, especially on the X2. AMD put a lot of relief on that by releasing the Athlon64 X2 3800+, which retailed for under $380 in most cases. That's a much nicer price for a dual core CPU. Of course, overclockers are going to swarm all over it. And they did. Over at legitreviews the 3800+ X2 is put to the test to see how well it overclocks, and whether or not it may become another “Celeron A”, (avid overclockers will remember the rave of taking a Celeron A 300 to 550MHz and beyond) a low priced chip that can offer enormous performance. The motherboard used was a DFI Lan Part NF4 Ultra, which is a very high quality motherboard. The rest of the components matched as well, to make sure the focus was on the CPU. The results were very pleasing. With an idle temperature of 31C, this chip was stable at the speed rating for a 4800+, currently a chip that is over a thousand dollars. With a bit more tweaking, using standard cooling and simple overclocking techniques, the processor ended up coming in at a screaming 2.7Ghz, and outperformed the 4800+ by a pretty good margin.

Outperforming a processor that is more than 3 times the cost is incredible – And the 3800+ did it without a hitch. Overclockers everywhere, this is a chip from heaven. Not even the fastest stock Athlon FX or P4 EE processor could stand up to this in terms of performance and value.