AMD has held a firm lead in gaming performance since the release of their Athlon 64 processors, and the company only strengthened that position with the release of the FX-57 earlier this summer. The unfortunate side effect of AMD's lead over Intel, however, is that this new flagship part was introduced at a new, higher price point compared to previous Athlon 64/FX releases, and without the expected trickle-down on the pricing of existing processors already available on the market. Does the FX-57's performance justify its price, though? We'll take a look at how it handles SimHQ's benchmark suite after briefly examining the changes and improvements AMD have made to this new part.