AMD has released the FX-57 Athlon64 processor. It’s a single-core chip, which is a dying breed. The word has it that next year’s FX-59 will be the last single-core chip made by AMD, who is switching all future designs to a dual-core base.

As software evolves to follow the dual-core power path, the single-core processors will fade away as well. The only reason that the single-core CPU’s haven’t disappeared yet is that they show slight performance edges when playing today’s heavy-duty video games. The games weren’t written to take advantage of a dual-core chip.

AMD has made it clear that dual (and higher) chips are the way of the future.

They’ve also announced that the FX-57 chip is an UNLOCKED chip. What does that mean? Ask any overclocker! It means that simple BIOS or software manipulation will let this chip run much faster than the rated speeds. Amd is also taking the totally unprecedented step of certifying certain cooling systems to allow this overclocking to be done without burning up your CPU. When the CPU costs over $1000, that’s a mighty good thing!