You can catch Josh Walrath’s take on the X2 5000+ Black Box, the last of the Athlons at PenStar Systems.  It is still a relevant chip, as desktop Phenom’s aren’t exactly available, and it’s overclocking ability will let you build a system that you can upgrade to a Phenom when they are available, and only have to drop ~$100 on the CPU.

You can also read Josh on PC Perspective, he has started doing editorials for us, and the first is Clashing Cultures: Marketing at AMD.  He and Ryan attended the Spider platform launch party … err … PR event … err … brainwashing ceremony … well read the editorial and get a good look behind the scenes of the intramural infighting between the CPU and GPU teams at AMD. 

“All was not wrong with the 65 nm X2 though. While the design was slightly slower than the older version, it was significantly more power efficient. AMD rates the 65 nm X2 as a 65 watt product across the board, except in the case of the X2-BE products which are rated at 45 watts. The older X2s have seemingly been sitting pretty at 89 watts for ages. This little marketing point became the mantra for the company, as energy efficiency trumps all these days rather than performance at all costs. Just ask Al Gore.”

Here are some more Processor articles from around the web:

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