AMD launches six new Athlon II CPUs

[MentalIlness]

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18778/66/

Dual, Tri and Quad cores

AMD has updated its CPU lineup with no less that six new Athlon II processors, all made in the same 45nm manufacturing process. The new CPU list includes two dual-cores, Athlon II X2 245e and X2 260, two tri-cores, Athlon II X3 415e and X3 445 and two quite cheap quad-core CPUs, the X4 610e and X4 640.

The new line starts with Athlon X2 260 priced at US $76 and the X2 245e priced at US $77. The X2 260 works at 3.2GHz, has 2MB of L2 cache and a maximum TDP of 65W. The X2 245e ticks at 2.9GHz, has the same 2MB of L2 cache and a lower TDP of 45W.

The Tri-core brethren are the X3 415e, clocked at 2.5GHz, 1.5MB of L2 cache and a 45W TDP, and the X3 445 clocked at 3.1GHz and a 95W TDP. The X3 416e has a US $102 while the X3 445 is a bit cheaper with the US $87 price tag.

The most interesting of the lot are certainly the new quad-cores as the X4 610e carries a US $145 price tag and the X4 640 comes priced at US $122. The X4 610e boasts a 45W TDP and a 2.4GHz clock, while the X4 640 ticks at 3.0GHz but has a 95W TDP. Both of these have 2MB of L2 cache.

Legitreviews.com put the X4 640 to the test and you can check it out http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1297/1/

 

[Phynaz]

Wow...100Mhz speed bumps.

Impressive AMD.

 

[jvroig]

I think it is a little more than just that for consumers. The new processors come with only 100Mhz speed bump, but the pricing structure is compressed, so what used to be $122 for an Athlon II X4 635, is now $122 for an Athlon II X4 640. It is not much, but it is better than releasing the 640 with a new tag price like $137 and letting the 635 remain at $122.

This launch looks like AMD just taking advantage of process improvement. This is the second round (630 -> 635 -> 640), so all in all, a 200MHz increase for the same amount of money (compared to the first Athlon II X4 parts) is nothing to sneeze at.

That said, I am less interested with Athlon II parts (except for the Athlon II X2, which are dirt cheap and seem to be good overclockers), and looking forward to Thuban derivatives.

 

[Stoneburner]

Nobody cares about an athlon 2 x2! We wanted x4 Thubans to unlock you stinky bastards!

 

[eternalone]

I want a dual core thuban with 4 unlockable cores think it will happen??? Under a $100 or close to a $100 like the 550 and 555 black.

 

[Stoneburner]

Apparently x4 thubans are not dead!

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/18809/1/

 

[sandorski]

That sure is a lot of Models within a tight Price Range. Next time you got Cash and are going to spend it on an AMD CPU, walk to the store and pick up empty refundable bottles/cans along the way. You just may be able to buy up a couple Models.

 

[manimal]

That sure is a lot of Models within a tight Price Range. Next time you got Cash and are going to spend it on an AMD CPU, walk to the store and pick up empty refundable bottles/cans along the way. You just may be able to buy up a couple Models.

Seriously! How cheap is this stuff getting. Ram now costs more than 3/4 of all the AMD processors right now for a system build. Or eat some ramen for a week instead of mcdonalds value meals and you got yourself a X6.

 

[richierich1212]

lol, I hate how RAM jacks up all system build budgets these days.

 

[sandorski]

Seriously! How cheap is this stuff getting. Ram now costs more than 3/4 of all the AMD processors right now for a system build. Or eat some ramen for a week instead of mcdonalds value meals and you got yourself a X6.

I'm not complaining. Was going to go for an X4, but bought the 1055T instead because it was just $40 more for 2 more Cores. Sweet deal.

 

[Gikaseixas]

This was the conclusion at LegitReviews, not bad for a $122 cpu:

I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed. It has nothing to do with the AMD Athlon II X4 640. It has more to do with the fact that I spent nearly $800.00 on my Intel Core I7 components and I could have built an AMD based system with the AMD Athlon II X4 640 for less than half of that cost. Granted, the Intel system did lead on all the tests, but the performance wasn't anywhere near double like the price is.

Despite being aimed at a more budget minded crowd, the AMD Athlon II X4 640 performs like a champ. Pair it with a system board like the ASRock 890GX Extreme3 that we used today and you have the base for a solid gaming or multi-media system. Not bad, considering the system would support dual-monitors, Blu-Ray playback, GPGPU applications like stream and most importantly it would be ready for Windows 7.

The low price of $122 is a great price for a quad core processor! If you are looking to get a little bit more performance out of your system you can pick up an AMD Phenom II 925 for only a few bucks more on the web. The decision is ultimately up to you. We did see a little bit more performance from the AMD Phenom II 910e that we tested, although it wasn't a significant amount in most cases.

Legit Bottom Line: The AMD Athlon II X4 640 may not be the world's fastest processor, though it isn't priced like it, either! The low price of $122.00 is aimed at the main stream crowd that likes to see a great price to performance ratio. AMD hit the nail on the head with the Athlon II X4 640 as the price to performance is terrific!

 

[BD231]

Nobody cares about an athlon 2 x2! We wanted x4 Thubans to unlock you stinky bastards!

haha, nice.

Where's DrMrLordx, he needs to read your statement :sneaky:

 

[LoneNinja]

One thing not mentioned here, these new Athlon II models are C3 stepping where as all current ones were still C2.

As to the Thuban X4, based on a review on Tomshardware.com the 960T performs worse at stock than a 965, and only overclocked to 3.9Ghz. Their particular chip they got because it was confirmed to be unlockable, and once they unlocked cores they couldn't get it past 3.6Ghz. They also mention that asrock tried unlocking 16 960T's into full fledged 6 core processors, out of those 16 only 6 unlocked successfully, meaning a mere 37% unlock rate.

 

[BD231]

This was the conclusion at LegitReviews, not bad for a $122 cpu:

I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed. It has nothing to do with the AMD Athlon II X4 640. It has more to do with the fact that I spent nearly $800.00 on my Intel Core I7 components and I could have built an AMD based system with the AMD Athlon II X4 640 for less than half of that cost. Granted, the Intel system did lead on all the tests, but the performance wasn't anywhere near double like the price is.

Despite being aimed at a more budget minded crowd, the AMD Athlon II X4 640 performs like a champ. Pair it with a system board like the ASRock 890GX Extreme3 that we used today and you have the base for a solid gaming or multi-media system. Not bad, considering the system would support dual-monitors, Blu-Ray playback, GPGPU applications like stream and most importantly it would be ready for Windows 7.

The low price of $122 is a great price for a quad core processor! If you are looking to get a little bit more performance out of your system you can pick up an AMD Phenom II 925 for only a few bucks more on the web. The decision is ultimately up to you. We did see a little bit more performance from the AMD Phenom II 910e that we tested, although it wasn't a significant amount in most cases.

Legit Bottom Line: The AMD Athlon II X4 640 may not be the world's fastest processor, though it isn't priced like it, either! The low price of $122.00 is aimed at the main stream crowd that likes to see a great price to performance ratio. AMD hit the nail on the head with the Athlon II X4 640 as the price to performance is terrific!

Paying over 1oo bucks for a processor when you could spend an extra twenty or so for the x4 phenom II ... not exactly all that great a deal IMO. I see no reason to jip yourself out of cache/clockspeed for a few dollars saved.

 

[ElFenix]

lol, I hate how RAM jacks up all system build budgets these days.

all i know is i could go to fry's practically any day of the week and get the following:

quad core AMD + board $90
4 GB of ram $90
halfway decent power supply $30
more harddrive space than anyone not ripping movies will ever need $50
dvd burner $25

if you aren't gaming or recoding that's plenty of system right there.

 

[richierich1212]

True but man, both DDR2 and DDR3 were half that price just a year ago.

 

[manimal]

True but man, both DDR2 and DDR3 were half that price just a year ago.

Ya remember those HP 5 dollar ddr2 sticks that overclocked like mad? The micron D9 2 gig kits from OCZs that sold for 29 AR? The ddr3 Corsairs 6 gig 1600s that sold for 60AR? Ram prices are downright awful right now....

Wonder if the purported glut in chips that are sitting in warehouses right now will cause some serious price drops soon? Cant remember the link but AP had a story about it recently.

 

[ElFenix]

reading my email from last year i see $28.99 for 4GB DDR2 800 ocz reaper with some funky handles. damn, ram was cheap.

 

[Terzo]

Paying over 1oo bucks for a processor when you could spend an extra twenty or so for the x4 phenom II ... not exactly all that great a deal IMO. I see no reason to jip yourself out of cache/clockspeed for a few dollars saved.

The problem is there's always more money to spend for more performance. For example, I could buy the athlon x4 630 for $100. The Phenom 955 would cost me $160. I spend more, but I'll be getting better performance. But why stop there? For only $40 more I can get an i7-930. Prices are from my local Microcenter, so this could change based on availability of a Frys or Microcenter.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

reading my email from last year i see $28.99 for 4GB DDR2 800 ocz reaper with some funky handles. damn, ram was cheap.

Not to worry. I'm excited about Thuban just because it + 790G + old DDR2 = awesomeness

 

[lopri]

I haven't been fond of this kind of "New products introductions". Saving grace for AMD is that their products are already near bargain-bin category so it won't matter either way.

 

[DrMrLordX]

haha, nice.

Where's DrMrLordx, he needs to read your statement :sneaky:

Oh I'm here, reading as I lurk. There's a Sempron 140 outside in my mailbox, or so the tracking information claims. Soon we shall see who cares about crappy Athlon II x2s! That is, provided mine unlocks.

Really it's just a tester to see if my GD70 is dead. But still, it should be interesting to see what the scrappy little C2 chip can do with an nh-d14 strapped to it.

Yeah, I'd rather have a C3 chip, but I got this thing shipped for $25 from eBay. It's supposed to be unopened and never used. We'll see.

One thing not mentioned here, these new Athlon II models are C3 stepping where as all current ones were still C2.

Yes, which should be VERY interesting. My 635 could hit 2.95 ghz NB isolated (2.85ghz in an consolidated overclock), and that was a C2 chip. NB speeds on C3 should be higher. I would rather see E0 here but whatever; not seeing many stellar NB speeds on Thubans yet.

As to the Thuban X4, based on a review on Tomshardware.com the 960T performs worse at stock than a 965, and only overclocked to 3.9Ghz. Their particular chip they got because it was confirmed to be unlockable, and once they unlocked cores they couldn't get it past 3.6Ghz. They also mention that asrock tried unlocking 16 960T's into full fledged 6 core processors, out of those 16 only 6 unlocked successfully, meaning a mere 37% unlock rate.

Yuck. 1035T anyone?

Paying over 1oo bucks for a processor when you could spend an extra twenty or so for the x4 phenom II ... not exactly all that great a deal IMO. I see no reason to jip yourself out of cache/clockspeed for a few dollars saved.

All depends on what you want. Going l3-less has theoretical benefits that I never really observed in real-world applications, partly due to the crappy limits of the memory controller on my poor, defunct 635. DDR3-1700 indeed.

But I *did* see it in at least one place!

My X4 635 with an NB speed of 2850 mhz and DDR3-1520 6-7-5-15 1T managed to beat the 32M SuperPi time of a 3.9 ghz Phenom II:

My time: 18m 25.449s 7BF80A1

Phenom II subcategory of SuperPi 32M times on XS:

4. Don_Dan - 17min 43sec 330ms - Phenom II X4 965 BE@4033.10mhz - Phenom II X4 965 @ 18.5x218MHz @ Megahalems | Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P F5 BIOS | 4GB Corsair Dominator GT 2000C8 @ 872MHz CL6 | XFX 7600 GT XXX @ Thermalright V1 Ultra @ 590/800MHz | Enermax Infiniti 720W
5. FatalOne - 19min 43sec 780ms - Phenom II X4 940@3800mhz - no description

As I suspected, the large working set of SuperPi 32M made my L3-less processor superior, clock per clock, to L3-equipped Deneb! I flat-out beat a 3.9 ghz Phenom II in SuperPi 32M, and came darn close to a 4 ghz one to boot, all at 3.7 ghz. One wonders what this little Sempron 140 can do, seeing as how SuperPi 32M is single-threaded, and I'll be using the same cooling on a 45W TDP chip . . .

Still, the C3 gimp chips will be very interesting for those of us who believe that Agena never should have had L3 in the first place!

 

[richierich1212]

SuperPi loves tight timings, which is what you ran with 6-7-5-15-1T. FatalOne probably had C7 or slower it seems.

 

[konakona]

This was the conclusion at LegitReviews, not bad for a $122 cpu:

I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed. It has nothing to do with the AMD Athlon II X4 640. It has more to do with the fact that I spent nearly $800.00 on my Intel Core I7 components and I could have built an AMD based system with the AMD Athlon II X4 640 for less than half of that cost. Granted, the Intel system did lead on all the tests, but the performance wasn't anywhere near double like the price is.

Despite being aimed at a more budget minded crowd, the AMD Athlon II X4 640 performs like a champ. Pair it with a system board like the ASRock 890GX Extreme3 that we used today and you have the base for a solid gaming or multi-media system. Not bad, considering the system would support dual-monitors, Blu-Ray playback, GPGPU applications like stream and most importantly it would be ready for Windows 7.

The low price of $122 is a great price for a quad core processor! If you are looking to get a little bit more performance out of your system you can pick up an AMD Phenom II 925 for only a few bucks more on the web. The decision is ultimately up to you. We did see a little bit more performance from the AMD Phenom II 910e that we tested, although it wasn't a significant amount in most cases.

Legit Bottom Line: The AMD Athlon II X4 640 may not be the world's fastest processor, though it isn't priced like it, either! The low price of $122.00 is aimed at the main stream crowd that likes to see a great price to performance ratio. AMD hit the nail on the head with the Athlon II X4 640 as the price to performance is terrific!

yeah well for most people that don't have fry's or MC's nearby, AMD definitely seems to be the way to go for a gaming machine these days, all but uber machines with multiple GPUs. I wouldn't have gotten me an i7 either if it wasn't for that incessant barrage of fry's combos

 

[BD231]

SuperPi loves tight timings, which is what you ran with 6-7-5-15-1T. FatalOne probably had C7 or slower it seems.

Would gaming/enconding stand to gain anything on tighter timings on the AM3 platform as well? I'm stuck at 9-9-9-32-1t wondering if a few new sticks of DDR3 would do any good.

Oh I'm here, reading as I lurk. There's a Sempron 140 outside in my mailbox, or so the tracking information claims. Soon we shall see who cares about crappy Athlon II x2s! That is, provided mine unlocks.

Really it's just a tester to see if my GD70 is dead. But still, it should be interesting to see what the scrappy little C2 chip can do with an nh-d14 strapped to it.

Yeah, I'd rather have a C3 chip, but I got this thing shipped for $25 from eBay. It's supposed to be unopened and never used. We'll see.

haha you plus a 25 dollar chip?? Experiment time. C2 isn't so bad, that's a steal NIB. Interested to see if you get that third and fourth core myself, I've yet to have any luck unlocking an athy/phenom .