Athlon II X3 435 & X2 240e

      If you thought AMD was done with the Phenom II and Athlon II product line-up you were wrong as they continue to put out new products in this case new Athlon II processors. Today AMD launches triple core Athlon II processors which will start with 4xx in their model number and new lower power processors across the line with "e" at the end of the model number. We'll be looking at specifically the Athlon II X3 435 processor and the Athlon II X2 240e processor.     The 435 is a triple core Athlon II processor clocked at 2.9GHz. As with all the Athlon II processors there is no L3 cache, it's built using a 45nm process, features 64K of L1 cache per core and 512KB of L2 cache. It's derivative of the Phenom II architecture but isn't built using die harvesting from Phenom II CPUs.     The 240e is a dual core Athlon II processor clocked at 2.8GHz. As with all the Athlon II processors there is no L3 cache, it's built using a 45nm process, features 64K of L1 cache per core and 1MB of L2 cache per core. AMD rates this and other "e" processors at 45W. Here's a list of processors launching today and price ranges. Athlon II X4 605e (2.3GHz) $143 USD Athlon II X4 600e (2.2GHz) $133 USD Athlon II X3 435 (2.9GHz) $87 USD Athlon II X3 425 (2.7GHz) $76 USD Athlon II X3 405e (2.3GHz) $102 USD Athlon II X3 400e (2.2GHz) $97 USD Athlon II X2 240e (2.8GHz) $77 USD Athlon II X2 235e (2.7GHz) $69 USD Note: the 435 and 425 are standard processors rated at 95W Note: ?e? indicates a low-power processor with a maximum power rating of just 45W   Here are the technical specifications on the Athlon II X3 435 processor. New Athlon II X3 435 Processor Specifications: Model Number & Core Frequency: X3 435 / 2.9GHz OPN: ADX435WFK32GI L1 Cache Sizes: 64K of L1 instruction and 64K of L1 data cache per core (384KB total L1 per processor) L2 Cache Sizes: 512KB of L2 data cache per core (1.5MB total L2 per processor) Memory Controller Type: Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller * Memory Controller Speed: Up to 2.0GHz with Dual Dynamic Power Management Types of Memory Supported: Unregistered DIMMs up to PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066MHz) -AND- PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333MHz) HyperTransport 3.0 Specification: One 16-bit/16-bit link @ up to 4.0GHz full duplex (2.0GHz x2) Total Processor-to-System Bandwidth: Up to 37.3GB/s total bandwidth [Up to 21.3 GB/s memory bandwidth (DDR3-1333) + 16.0GB/s (HT3)] Up to 33.1GB/s total bandwidth [Up to 17.1 GB/s memory bandwidth (DDR2-1066) + 16.0GB/s (HT3)] Packaging: Socket AM3 938-pin organic micro pin grid array (micro-PGA) Fab location: GLOBALFOUNDARIES Fab 1 module 1 in Dresden, Germany (formerly AMD Fab 36) Process Technology: 45-nanometer DSL SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology Approximate Die Size: 169mm2 ** Approximate Transistor count: ~300 million ** Max Temp: 73o Celsius Nominal Voltage: 0.875-1.425V Max TDP: 95 Watts *Note: configurable for dual 64-bit channels for simultaneous read/writes **Note: this specification is for a ?Propus? die     And here are the technical specifications on the Athlon II X2 240e. New Athlon II X2 240e Processor Specifications: Model Number & Core Frequency: X2 240e / 2.8GHz OPN: AD240EHDK23GQ L1 Cache Sizes: 64K of L1 instruction and 64K of L1 data cache per core (256KB total L1 per processor) L2 Cache Sizes: 1MB of L2 data cache per core (2MB total L2 per processor) Memory Controller Type: Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller * Memory Controller Speed: 2.0GHz with Dual Dynamic Power Management Types of Memory Supported: Support for unregistered DIMMs up to PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066MHz) -AND- PC3-8500 (DDR3-1066MHz) HyperTransport 3.0 Specification: One 16-bit/16-bit link @ up to 4.0GHz full duplex (2.0GHz x2) Total Processor-to-System Bandwidth: Up to 33.1GB/s bandwidth [Up to 17.1 GB/s total bandwidth (DDR2 or DDR3-1066) + 16.0GB/s (HT3)] Packaging: Socket AM3 938-pin organic micro pin grid array (micro-PGA) Fab location: GLOBALFOUNDRIES Fab 1 Module 1 Process Technology: 45-nanometer DSL SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology Approximate Die Size: 117.5 mm2 Approximate Transistor count: ~ 234 million Max Temp: 72 degrees Celsius Nominal Voltage: .775 ? 1.35V Max TDP: 45 Watts *Note: configurable for dual 64-bit channels for simultaneous read/writes Here's our test system. Mother Board Asus M3A78-T Memory Corsair XMS 4GB Video Card ATI Radeon 4850 Hard Drive Western Digital SE 16 750GB Case Tsunami Thermaltake Display Samsung SyncMaster 30"     Windows Vista 64-bit SP2 was our OS with Catalyst version 9.9 for testing. V-sync was disabled.       We'll start things off with Crysis which like many games only supports two cores. Here we see the 955BE far and away take the lead and not too much difference between the X3 435 and the X2 240e.   Unreal Tournament 3 supports four cores and more so is geared towards three to match the XBox 360's architecture. It is easily the most licensed and popular game engine on the market, console or PC. Here we see the third core of the X3 make more of a difference but nothing can top the X4's L3 cache which games love and fourth core.           Cinebench 10 is a rendering benchmark and here see more effective use of multiple cores. The X4 620 does quite well in this instance and the X2 240e lags behind the Athlon II X3 435.     Here again the X3 does much better than the other processors thanks to it's third core.     Valve particle benchmark renders thousands of particles on screen and is very multi-threaded and the higher the score the better. The X2 processors lag behind and as expected the X3 is somewhere in the middle.   Another rendering benchmark and this is where the four cores shine as the Athlon II X4 tops all processors except the Phenom II X4 955. Again the X3 435 comes in the middle.   3DMark Vantage is a synthetic but somewhat popular benchmark which is supposed to emulate how games might perform on a game engine. Again we see a similar pattern of the X3 in the middle and X4 955 BE dominating.     Our Athlon II X3 overclocked well gaining over 700MHz with some additional voltage. Not shabby whatsoever.       Our low power Athlon II X2 240 also overclocked as well gaining 700MHz from the 2.8GHz speed.     Phenom II X4 965 BE Athlon II X3 435 Athlon II X2 240e Idle 140W 120W 117W Load 205W 165W 141W For power consumption testing idle results were taken 10 minutes into the Windows Vista desktop screen and load was taken running Cinebench to stress processor power ratings only. The X4 965 is obviously more power hungry with an L3 cache, higher clock speed, and fourth core, the Athlon II X3 435 and Athlon II X2 240e appear evenly matched idle but under load things look differently.   Conclusion:What more can you say other than if you want a sub-$200 processor AMD is really the place to be. They are unmatched by Intel and will be until at least sometime into 2010. One bad thing is that all these part names are a little confusing the model numbers can definitely be more than tough to match up with what is actually going on with the processor other than the "e" series. They're all also fairly clumped together in price with nothing lower than $76. While they're all amazing bargains we think it's probably worth it to spend the extra $23 and go for a quad core Athlon II X4 at $99. This seems like the best and smartest bargain with a CPU that should actually fair quite well for a while as well with four cores and a bargain. Something which previously was not the case. Congrats to AMD. Pricing:These CPUs should show up in our price search engine very soon but aren't as of yet. Score: 94%  '); //-->

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Tags: ddr2 ddr3 hd4850 hypertransport overclocking phenom radeon socket-am3 vista 3dmark cinebench athlon