AMD continue to move forward once again in the processor desktop market and with much talk of using a higher FSB (Front Side Bus) data setting AMD have come forth. There last desktop processor release the XP3000+ highlighted very strongly how MHz is not everything in the world of the processor market. The XP3000+ demonstrated this by running at a clock speed 2160MHz and often outperforming a higher clocked processor from Intel which is the main rival in this market. However for the enthusiast will always crave for more or better figures and recently we have seen from Intel same clock speeds but a higher FSB interface and AMD have responded to this with the release of this new XP3200+ based on a 400MHz FSB interface.

The last 18 hours have been extremely exciting for hardware junkies like us! We started the morning with reviews of ATi's 256MB Radeon 9800 Pro. Then 3 hours later, NVIDIA lifted the NDAs on their GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, also known as the NV35. Now, it's AMD's turn in the spotlight! Tonight on HotHardware.Com, we bring you the new Athlon XP 3200+! This CPU marks the debut of a 400MHz system bus for the Athlon XP. Click the link below to see just how large of an impact the faster system bus has on overall performance...

The new Athon XP 3200+ (FSB400, 2200 MHz) is here and we had the chance to review it.

The last fifteen months have seen a dramatic shift in the prospects of the AthlonXP core architecture when compared to the Pentium 4. Throughout the first half of 2002 the AthlonXP fell farther and farther behind as Intel's P4 effortlessly scaled upwards, appeared on new and higher-performing chipsets, and jumped to a higher front-side bus. By comparison, the AMD's flagship was wheezing, having gone nearly as far as even its excellently-tuned .18 micron process was capable of taking it. Sunnyvale's first foray into .13 micron technology on the desktop wasn't exactly encouraging, as the first revision of the 2200+ ran far hotter than even an equivalently-clocked Palomino would've done.

With its release of the Athlon XP 3000+ last month, AMD forged ahead with a new chip that has a slightly different change to it – namely the amount of L2 Cache – and we found that it did an admirable job of keeping pace with the latest from Intel. Today, AMD has upped the ante once again with its 3200+ chip which now runs at a 400MHz (200MHz DDR) front side bus. While the is still one half the speed of Intel’s current “Canterwood” Chip, it’s enough of a boost to keep AMD in the race with regards to desktop performance.

THIS IS a simple one. AMD is introducing a new Athlon XP variant today dubbed the 3200+. This processor runs at 2.2GHz on a 400MHz front-side bus, which means the CPU is 33MHz faster than its predecessor, while the bus is 66MHz faster.

The Athlon XP has slid from being a mighty value champ to a spineless paper tiger, although our testing engineers only found fault with the aggressive model-numbering scheme AMD has adopted. On the plus side, there are some new features, including 200 MHz FSB and the nForce 2 chipset's support for dual DDR400.

About 2 1/2 months ago, we previewed what we thought the Athlon XP3200+ would look like. Aside from a fake Photoshop picture we showed industry norm benchmarks to give an idea what to expect from the next speed bump of AMD's 32 bit flagship processor . As it turns out, we could not have been much closer to the real thing that is unveiled today. More interesting, though are some performance issues pertaining to running the nForce2 chipset in APIC mode as opposed to the old-fashioned PIC mode. Up to 20% performance increase in selected multimedia benchmarks like Content Creation Winstones speak a very bold language but we have all the details in the following.