A higher speed flavour of desktop AMD Athlon 64 processor rated at 3400+ has emerged for sale in a number of online and probably offline stores. The appearance of a new AMD64 chip may indicate that its announcement is just around the corner.

The new performance king from the Athlon 64 family – the AMD Athlon 64 3400+ – works at 2.20GHz, incorporates 1MB of secondary cache and supports AMD’s highly-acclaimed Cool’n’Quiet technology. The new processor is packaged into 754-pin package and provides single-channel PC3200 memory controller.

The CPU’s initial price in web-stores is from $440 to $533 – a typical price frame for a high-end desktop microprocessor from Sunnyvale, California-based chipmaker.

The addition of yet another 754-pin option allows AMD to offer a comprehensive line-up of desktop 64-bit chips that now includes AMD Athlon 64 3000+ at $218 as well as Athlon 64 3200+ and Athlon 64 3400+ at higher price bins. The firm also offers Athlon 64 FX processors at above $700 price-point for hardcore gamers and enthusiasts that represent only a minor part of the market.

In the second quarter of 2004 the company is likely to push the speed of its ClawHammer core up once again by introducing the Athlon 64 3700+ chip that is supposed to be the fastest and the last processor for Socket 754 ever made. After the transition to Socket 939 by desktop AMD CPUs, the Athlon 64 processors will gain a dual-channel memory controller, but will loose half of their L2 cache. The Athlon 64 FX will still have 1MB of level-two cache and a dual-channel memory controller, therefore, the additional on-chip memory will be practically the only peculiarity to differ the Athlon 64 from the Athlon 64 FX processors.

Even though some sources of X-bit labs expected AMD Athlon 64 3400+ chips to emerge before 2003 year end, the actual processors will be formally rolled-out in 2004, while Advanced Micro Devices, obviously, began to supply the goods to its partners already back in 2003.

Performance of the unannounced Athlon 64 3400+ processor that is available out now is not known as there are no accessible reviews of the product; though, the chip may work nearly as fast as or even faster compared to AMD’s fastest AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 CPU quoted at $733, given that unbuffered memory used by the Athlon 64 performs better in quite some real-world applications, particularly in office software, that do not require monstrous bandwidth. Demanding games and professional apps will still work somewhat better on AMD Athlon 64 FX-51 systems.

There is no information about introduction of AMD Athlon 64 FX-53 – the next chip from Sunnyvale with extreme performance and price.

Representatives from Advanced Micro Devices usually do not comment on unannounced products. Since both leading makers of central processing units prefer to add new SKUs on Mondays, I would suggest that the Athlon 64 3400+ will be rolled out either on the 5^th, or on the 12^th, or on the 19^th.