AMD releases 8 new Athlon processors

Say what you want about Microsoft and its Windows operating system but the PC industry is adjusting according to its launch dates and general activity. In two days Microsoft will launch the anticipated Windows 7 operating system and it's up to each hardware manufacturer to ride the waves caused by it. AMD is one of these and today it has launched an armada of budget processors that will lure consumers to upgrade.

With prices ranging from $60 up to $140 AMD has managed to squeeze out no less than eight new models for the Athlon II family. The processors sport two, three or four cores and clock frequencies between 2.2GHz and 2.9GHz. Six of the processors are marked as Energy Efficient with only 45W TDP.

Model	Clock frequency	L2 cache	TDP	Price
Athlon II X4 605e	2,3GHz	2,0MB	45 W	~$140
Athlon II X4 600e	2,2GHz	2,0MB	45 W	~$130
Athlon II X3 405e	2,3GHz	1,5MB	45 W	~$100
Athlon II X3 400e	2,2GHz	1,5MB	45 W	~$95
Athlon II X2 240e	2,8GHz	2,0MB	45 W	~$80
Athlon II X2 235e	2,7GHz	2,0MB	45 W	~$70

AMD has also released the first triple-core Athlon II processors and the new duo consists of Athlon II X3 435 and X3 425. The processors use the core architecture as the Athlon II X4 CPUs but with one core disabled. This results in a total L2 cache of 1.5MB and 95W TDP. Clock frequencies are set to 2.9GHz and 2.7GHz.

Model	Clock frequency	L2 cache	TDP	Price
Athlon II X3 435	2,9GHz	1,5MB	95 W	~$85
Athlon II X3 425	2,7GHz	1,5MB	95 W	~$75

These processor seem to offer a pretty good performance per penny with price tags between $65-80. Several reviews have appeared and they all show that AMD is really in the game if we're talking price/performance, which is important to many today.

Posted in: Intel