Driverheaven: AMD ATHLON 64 FX-53

AMD ATHLON 64 FX-53

Review: Stuart "Veridian3" Davidson
Editor/Design: Allan "Zardon" Campbell

Veridian3's Conclusion:
The AMD Athlon64 FX-53 is very fast, there is no doubting that. As with the FX-51 this speed comes with a price, retailing at around $800 it’s not for the thrifty however the fastest Intel CPU’s on the market are the only products that can keep up with it at stock settings, and these too come with a high price tag.

The main (and only) concern with the FX-53 lies in overclocking. Overclocking is still not this processors strong point. After average overclocking results from the FX-51 we had hoped the 6month gap would have allowed AMD to further refine the core and therefore overclocking potential. In the high end market that the FX-53 is placed at Intel users are seeing their 3.4ghz Extreme Editions hit over 4ghz. Despite the clockspeed difference between the two the FX still gives a strong showing in performance, it just looses out on that “fun” factor overclocking wise when compared to Intel CPU’s.

Stability was never a concern during the review, even at the higher voltage and multiplier/max overclock the system never crashed or exhibited any strange quirks. We would be happy to run it at the higher settings 24/7 which makes it an even more attractive purchase.

As we mentioned at the beginning of the review this is no more than a higher clocked FX-51 (not that we were expecting anything else). If you fancy a move away from an Intel, or an upgrade from an older Athlon XP system then you’ll notice the difference in performance immediately. You’ll also have the peace of mind/future-proofing that owning a 64bit system brings. Additionally if your looking for the fastest processor to base your new system on then you need look no further.

Zardons Closing Thoughts:
Quite an impressive set of results across the board, but I still feel in my heart these processors are poor value - with a measly 200mhz overclock complimented by mid 50c temperatures on stock cooling, anyone even contemplating clocking an FX53 past its defaults is going to need some serious cooling.

A much cheaper alternative would be to pick up a 3.0ghz or 3.2ghz P4, both of which should surpass 3.5 ghz with good cooling and will give almost comparible scores. If you are an Intel hater, then the bartons are still great performers at a fraction of the price and should tide you over for many 32 bit OS months yet. A high end processor like the FX53 or the Intel Extreme Edition its going to cost you in excess of $800 which will probably make a UK conversion of around £500-£600 .... oh yeah dont forget the watercooling/phase change and a few sticks of high quality ECC/Reg ram if you want to get every available megahertz from your new toy.

A great processor? certainly. Great value? certainly not.

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