Today AMD introduces what might turn out to be the ideal budget CPU, with three cores for multi-threading, a relatively high 2.9 GHz clock speed, and an impressive sub-$90 price tag. How does it stand up to the rest of the company's Athlon and Phenom IIs?
After the launch of the Athlon II X2 and Athlon II X4 CPUs, it would be difficult to feign surprise at the introduction of the new Athlon II X3. We all knew it was coming, we even mentioned the upcoming X3 flavor of Athlon II in our Athlon II X4 620 launch story.
While the shock and awe might have been spoiled, the Athlon II X3 certainly isn't. AMD's vanguard model is the Athlon II X3 435, and it combines two very compelling components: a relatively high clock speed of 2.9 GHz (that's 100 MHz faster than the top-of-the-line Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition), and a relatively low MSRP of $87.
AMD already has the sub-$120 CPU market sewn up with a glut of Athlon IIs and Phenom II X2s and X3s, but at under $90, does the new Athlon II X3 435 offer the best value in the bunch? Let's find out.
- Introduction
- The 'New' Athlon II X3
- AMD Adds Low-Power CPUs To The Lineup
- Overclocking The Athlon II X3 435
- Test System And Benchmarks
- Synthetic Benchmarks
- Application Benchmarks: Media Encoding
- Application Benchmarks: 2D And 3D Graphics Processing
- Application Benchmarks: Productivity
- Game Benchmarks
- Multitasking Benchmarks
- Power Consumption Benchmarks
- Conclusion
CPU Cores: 3 2 2 2
shouldn.t they all have 3 cores?
Am I seeing things, or do the graphs contradict this statement???
During AVG scan:
Athlon II 435 @3.77ghz (31/7)
Athlon II 620 (30/6)
I think the numbers do to. Dodge review...
But look at the timing..AMD has it's foot in the door, and not just with CPU's. Match an Athlon II x3 or x4 with a nice Radeon or two and bingo..high performance/low cost PC. Intel might even have a better product but AMD has parts available now, it isn't resting on it's feet waiting for the competition, it's making competition. I reckon by next year we might just be seeing a similar review, only with 6 cores, 45watt devices that once again show their worth.
Me personally, I'd go with that Quad core, mabe even an 'e' version depending on how it clocks. Can't really fault anything here and you still get the option to upgrade without having to spend loads of money on a new motherboard.
Now is the perfect time for AMD to regroup, get some (more) quality bits out of the door and make some cash while they're competitive (Intel) or have no competition (NVIDIA).
there is no Intel Chipset in this review because they don't need to do one, we already know how it compares to the Phenom 3 720, people can just check the graphs and figure it out.
Wow..you must feel really big having done that, especially when you neg'd a comment simply thanking THG for the time and effort they put into providing us with this information. Tell me..is your life so sad that you only register accounts to do that, or do you have the gonad's to come on here like everyone else and voice your opinion. Come, come..don't be shy and stupid all your life.