Well, you've seen the benchmark results, and there's not much I can add. The Athlon 64 FX-53 was already brutally fast, and the new 939-pin version is a tad bit faster still. The Athlon 64 3800+ is darn near as fast as the FX-53, despite having half the L2 cache. If you have the means, I highly suggest picking one up.

The question of means, however, is no small thing. AMD obviously has the performance lead over Intel, and the fastest Athlon 64s are priced accordingly. The FX-53 will list for $799—cheaper than the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, but more than, say, a GeForce 6800 Ultra or Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition, or perhaps a tropical vacation. At $720, the Athlon 64 3800+ won't be much cheaper, nor will the Socket 754-based 3700+ at $710. The price for the Socket 939-based Athlon 64 3500+ gets closer to reasonable territory at $500. I only wish AMD had kicked one in for review, because I might be recommending it right now.