The Barton core processors showed a moderate but strong gain in performance. Being as the 3000+ is actually running at the same frequency as the 2700+, and that we saw some very noticeable increases in benchmark results means that AMD is taking the right route with the addition of L2 cache. There is simply no denying that more cache = better performance until we reach an echelon. As we can see from the preliminary specifications of the Hammer-based processors like the Athlon 64 and the Opterons, moving up to 1 MB of cache or even 2 MB of cache will be the common grounds Intel and AMD will take in order to move forward in the processor world.
