Today AMD launched their new unified desktop socket format, Socket AM2. Socket AM2 is set to replace AMD's socket 939 which will be EOLed (end of life) at the end of this year, and will support both AMD's high end Athlon 64 X2 and FX processors as well as their low end Sempron processors. Socket 754 is set to remain in AMD's lineup throughout the end of 2007 as a way to mantain an inexpensive single channel DDR based platform.

Socket AM2 marks AMD's change from DDR memory to DDR2 memory, as well as the move of their Sempron value lineup from single channel to a dual channel memory format.

Here are several reviews from around the web:

AnandTech
X-Bit Labs
HardOCP
Hot Hardware
ExtremeTech
FiringSquad


What AMD has accomplished today is indicative of the evolution and migration of an architecture, that will pave the way for future performance and enhancements. The move to DDR2 memory was inevitable and as future Athlon core architectures evolve, the company will have much needed bandwidth to service ever-hungry dual core processor pipelines. Frankly, in some spots we were hoping for better performance from AM2 but in the back of our minds we suspected this may not be the case. Regardless, you simply cannot take away the fact the new Athlon 64 FX-62 and Athlon 64 X2 5000+ are two of the fastest processors money can buy for the PC right now; and the former is easily the fastest desktop chip on the market at the moment.- Hot Hardware


Summing up everything we have said about the new AMD Socket AM2 platform we have to admit that the introduction of DDR2 SDRAM support is a small evolutionary step forward. Our tests showed that the transition to DDR2 SDRAM doesn’t bring in any significant performance gain. Moreover, you have to make sure that your system uses the fastest DDR2 SDRAM with 800MHz frequency and minimal timings if you want to see any performance improvement at all. The widely spread DDR2-667 SDRAM may sometimes provide absolutely no performance gain at all compared with the Socket 939 platforms supporting DDR400 SDRAM with low timings settings.- X-bit Labs


As AMD makes the transition to DDR2, it's clear that Intel's NetBurst line of desktop CPUs is on its final lap. Waiting in the wings is Intel's Core 2 Duo line, more commonly referred to by its code name, Conroe. But Conroe is not shipping until later this summer, while AMD is out of the starting blocks with its AM2 line. As we've seen, DDR2 has had a positive impact in some performance metrics, though the differences don't seem to be large.

For the time being, AMD's Athlon 64 FX-62 pretty much captures the desktop CPU performance crown, especially for PC gaming, but you'll pay a steep price. Even the 5000+ weighs in at barely south of $700. Still, the performance is generally exceptional.- ExtremeTech

It is ironic and equally unfortunate for AMD that on the eve of Intel finally getting its act together, that the Socket-AM2 launch is so devoid of any sort of performance improvements. It's clear that AMD's architecture just simply isn't starved of memory bandwidth at this point, and it will take either higher clock speeds or architectural improvements to make the move to DDR2 necessary. We are happy with the fact that AMD at least kept memory latency down while moving to DDR2, but at this point there's simply no use for the bandwidth.

In the coming months we will see the official launch of Intel's Core 2 Duo processors, based on the Conroe core. Only time will tell how availability will affect pricing of those CPUs, but Intel is quite eager to ready them. AMD is also patiently awaiting the launch of Core 2 Duo, in fact one of its stipulations for sending out Socket-AM2 review kits was that the CPUs not be compared to Conroe. We understood and agreed with AMD's stance on the issue, simply because Core 2 Duo (Conroe) isn't shipping yet while AM2 is, but we do get a sense of concern whenever Conroe is brought up around AMD. - AnandTech