It is a surprise, but AMD apparently started to sell its Athlon XP 3000+ and 2500+ processors based on the Barton core almost right after the official launch. During the weekend a number of Japanese retail stores began to sell the novelties from AMD.

The Athlon XP 2500+ and 3000+ chips with Barton core are manufactured using 0.13 micron copper technology in Fab30, Dresden, Germany. The slower CPU runs at 1833MHZ, while the fastest AMD microprocessor currently offered functions at 2167MHz. All Barton CPUs utilise 333MHz EV-6 FSB and are equipped with 512KB of L2 cache. Read more about performance and peculiarities of the new Athlon XP processors in our article called AMD Athlon XP 3000+, 2800+ and 2500+ on Barton Core.

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ processor is priced from $195 to $212, while the 3000+ model costs from $627 to $645. It does not seem that AMD’s new processors are cheap. Either there is a great demand on them in Japan, or simple the quantities are very limited.

Let us wait till the new chips from AMD appear massively in Europe and the USA.