WE LOVE TO COVER the release of hot new processors that run at seventy jazillion megahertz and cost more than a Florida vacation, but everybody knows the real action is down in the middle of the product line, in the sweet spot. No, we're not talking about some semi-veiled reference in a Britney Spears song. We're talking about the point where the supply and demand lines converge at optimum performance, the place where good deals are born and tech know-how can overcome the constraints of a limited budget. AMD's new Athlon 64 3000+ arguably resides in the sweet spot now, priced at less than $220 for an honest-to-goodness 2GHz "Hammer" microprocessor with a built-in memory controller and true 64-bit computing capabilities. To see how the 3000+ measures up, we've benchmarked it against 11 of its closest competitors. Keep reading to see what we found.