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Advanced Micro Devices pushed ahead in the megahertz wars with the release this week of the Athlon XP 3200+, and first tests of the new CPU indicate the company retains the crown for best value as well.

In initial tests, two systems based on the 2.2-GHz Athlon XP 3200+ processor easily outran top Pentium 4-based systems on business applications. And each would save you $100 to $400.

For the sweet spot of power and price, though, value-minded shoppers should consider Athlon XP 3000+ systems, which run many apps at much the same pace and would save you an additional $150.

Speeding Along

The Athlon XP 3200+ offers only minor design changes over the 3000+. AMD has, however, pumped up the frontside bus speed slightly, from 333 MHz to 400 MHz. (Intel's latest 3-GHz P4 chips sport an 800-MHz frontside bus, though in our tests that made little difference.)

PC World tested two production-level PCs based on the Athlon XP 3200+ chip: Polywell's $2255 Poly 880NF3-3200 and Sys Technologies' $2895 Sys Performance 3200+. Both demonstrated some performance improvement over older Athlons, including gains that make the new Athlons even more attractive than the Intel competition.

The Polywell earned a scorching PC WorldBench 4 rating of 139, and the Sys was close behind at 134. Those scores are also comparable to the 137 scored by a similarly configured Sys Athlon XP 3000+ PC. However, the two new Athlons widen their siblings' lead over three of the newest 3-GHz P4 systems with Intel's 800-MHz bus, which earned an average of 126 on PC WorldBench 4.

Similarly, the 3200+ PCs tore through AutoCAD tasks, finishing the test about 25 seconds faster than the average of the 3-GHz P4 systems. That's noteworthy because AutoCAD is one of only two PC World tests in which the 800-MHz bus seemed to boost newer 3-GHz P4 systems compared with 3.06-GHz P4 boxes.

However, the 3200+ systems showed significant improvement over older AMDs only on the Unreal Tournament 2002 game test, where they also matched--or, in the Polywell's case, surpassed--Intel P4s. Intel, however, continued to lead on the Musicmatch test and the Return to Castle Wolfenstein game test.

Winning Value

So if you've decided to buy a PC from Polywell, why would you pay over $400 extra to get a comparable Intel-based P4 system instead of the 3200+ machine we tested?

Good question, unless you are an Intel-only shop or household.

Of course, many people buy Intel-based machines for an understandable reason: AMD still hasn't cracked the product lines of some leading PC vendors. In fact, Hewlett-Packard is currently the only top-tier desktop PC vendor using AMD chips.

Nevertheless, the fortunes of AMD--and of PC shoppers--could take a turn for the better with the upcoming Athlon 64 chip. Expected to launch in September, this chip will debut a new memory interface that could seriously speed up applications.

Intel's next P4, the "Prescott" chip, is also scheduled for release this year. It offers double the Level 2 cache and improved hyperthreading. But if you want an AMD-based power desktop now, go ahead--you'll get a good value with the top-of-the-line 3200+, and an even better deal if you go one step down to the 3000+.