Price: $620 - $680 esp

Ship Date: Late August

Regular Sharky Extreme readers most likely already know that four versions of AMD's new Athlon CPU are debuting this month.

Separated by their core speeds, the line shapes up as follows: (core speed/bus speed):

Athlon 650/100
Athlon 600/100
Athlon 550/100
Athlon 500/100

Sharky Extreme reviewed the top of the line Athlon 650 in a separate article that can be found here. Readers wanting to familiarize themselves with the details concerning the Athlon's internal architecture and featureset should scoot on over and read our Athlon 650 review before diving into this one on the 600MHz product. (The earlier article contains all of the "newbie" info we typically report when a brand new product arrives, including all of the nuances and details that readers have come to expect from us.)

We made the decision to lighten the Athlon 600's review up from redundant information in order to save time for those who have already read the Athlon 650 review, and don't feel like grinding through each minute detail once again here.

Now that we've clarified our agenda (and where you can find the Athlon 650 review), let's get on with reviewing one of the fastest CPUs money can buy, the AMD Athlon 600.