AMD has begun shipping its anticipated budget-priced Athlon 64 X2 3600+, initially pitching the processor at the Chinese market but with a view to offering it across a wider range of geographies in due course.

So say distributor sources cited by DigiTimes. The 3600+ is a Socket AM2 part clocked at 2GHz and fitted with 256KB of L2 cache for each of the two cores.

The part is being offered as an alternative to Intel's low-end dual-core Pentium Ds and the upcoming Core 2 Duo E4300, though that's not expected to ship, if roadmap leaks are to be believed, until Q1 2007. ®

Read our Core 2 Extreme and Athlon 64 FX-62 head-to-head here