Advanced Micro Devices Tuesday finally added its Athlon 64 2800+ processor into official price list, reflecting its availability for at least some customers. The new chip is not designated to demonstrate unbelievably high performance, but is supposed to enable very affordable personal computers with AMD64 technology.

Sunnyvale, California-based chipmaker AMD added the Athlon 64 2800+ processor for desktops into its technical documentation in early March. The 2800+ chips run at 1.80GHz, incorporate 512KB of L2 cache and feature single-channel memory controller. Thermal and electrical specifications of the Athlon 64 2800+ are the same as those of other PGA754 chips from AMD. The company quotes the new microprocessor at $178 price-point in for business quantities, the same price tag as the least expensive Intel Pentium 4 with 800MHz QPB and HT technology.

Previously AMD Athlon 64 processors with 2800+ model number were available only for mobile and DTR systems.

64-bit microprocessors priced in $200 and below range have all chances to become popular among end-users who are looking for some new and exciting hardware, but cannot easily afford a $400 or $700 CPUs, such as the Athlon 64 3400+ or Athlon 64 FX-53. System integrators should also be happy with the new flavour of AMD64, as their customers may bite those more reasonably priced 64-bit systems.

AMD’s product cost policy sometime allows certain distributors to sell processors at prices below official.

Nevertheless, AMD is not going to offer really mass quantities of its 64-bit processors for desktops and laptops until later this year. Shipments of AMD64 chips should stay in the range of below 1 million units per month in the Q1 and Q2 2004, sources told X-bit labs.