Hardware 2.0

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

AMD rolls out 8 new Athlon CPUs in time for Windows 7

By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes | October 20, 2009, 8:15am PDT

Today we see AMD roll out eight new CPUs just in time to make it to a launch party!

Here’s the new lineup:

AMD Athlon II X3 435 - 95W TDP - 2.9GHz - $87
AMD Athlon II X3 425 - 95W TDP - 2.7GHz - $76
AMD Athlon II X4 605e - 45W TDP - 2.3GHz - $143
AMD Athlon II X4 600e - 45W TDP - 2.2GHz - $133
AMD Athlon II X3 405e - 45W TDP - 2.3GHz - $102
AMD Athlon II X3 400e - 45W TDP - 2.2GHz - $97
AMD Athlon II X2 240e - 45W TDP - 2.8GHz - $77
AMD Athlon II X2 235e - 45W TDP - 2.7GHz - $69

Note: Prices are for trays of 1,000 units. Street price will be higher.

You might have noticed that the first two CPUs in the list are triple core Athlon CPUs, both priced at under $100. According to AMD these
offer “75 percent better media and entertainment performance when compared to the Intel Core 2 Duo E8500.”

The other six CPUs are energy-efficient, 45W TDP (Thermal Design Power) parts which are designed for low-power consumption SFF (Small Form Factor) and HTPC (Home Theater PC) systems which demand a CPU with low heat output.

According to AMD the Athlon II X2 240e processor performs up to 70 percent better in media and entertainment benchmarks and delivers a processor cost saving of over $40 when compared to the Intel Core 2 Duo E7400.

AMD might not have the fastest CPUs, but it’s certainly going after the low-end and low-power-consumption markets aggressively.

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Microsoft Windows 7, AMD Athlon, Microsoft Windows, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., CPU, Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

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Too little

bmgoodman 20th Oct 2009

I've bought AMD CPUs in the past, but they lost their edge with Intel's release of Core 2. AMD has yet to recover. I just don't see myself going AMD to save $50. Frankly, $100 won't move me when I consider I will keep a new PC for 4-6 years.

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AMD is actually doing some good stuff now

Joe_Raby 20th Oct 2009

The tri-core and quad-core processors selling for well under $150 along with the 785G chipset makes for a nice machine on a budget. There are a lot of motherboards selling for under $100 that include SidePort memory (128MB dedicated DDR3-1333 on the board) for the included Radeon HD 4200 onboard video.

Building a quad-core Micro ATX system in low-profile slim desktop/tower or even a full-profile tower can be done for under $500.

You can't get the same features and performance with a comparably priced Core 2 Quad system, and you certainly can't do that with the Core i5's. AMD has the market on the sub-$600 systems. Intel's Core i5's and i7's may be getting good reviews, but Intel doesn't have anything as good as AMD for as cheap as the Athlon II's. They still don't even have onboard graphics for the Core i5's and i7's, and it's not like the NVIDIA GeForce 9300/9400 chipset for socket 775 has really taken off either, since Socket 775 is effectively dead now.

To build a "cheap" Core i5 or i7 system, you'd have to use Intel's low-end board that doesn't support multiple graphics cards (the DP55WB), and you'd still have to plop in a GeForce 210 or GT 220 card for PCI-e 2.0 graphics (nice cards for cheap, but adds extra cost). Even the low-end Core i5 processor isn't as cheap either.

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true but

rdupuy11 20th Oct 2009

true but there is a larger market for Core i7, and so just by waiting for the Dell Outlet to have a good one, along with a coupon, I got a Core i7 for $600.

maybe not interesting for a system builder, but for the individual... pricing a Core i7 at the usual discount spots, might be worthwhile.

Even some of these had higher end graphics cards (definately my model supports only 1 card).

Although I didn't even want a high end gaming card, I was just looking for the CPU power, for various programs that I had that in the past, got CPU bound.

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you know what?

thx-1138_@... Updated - 21st Oct 2009

...you're both right.

Many folk - on a tight budget - that wish to buy a brand spanking new, low-end home entertainment system with some of the latest X2 to X4 technology will more than likely be swayed by the latest AMD CPU's.

Conversely, those prospective buyers that want the better performing Intel iCore (mid-to-low end CPU's) often won't: due to similarly 'restrained budgets'. So what do these folk do? Quite simply, they will, much like you, exercise a little patience and wait for the next wave of Intel iCores. Invariably, what that normally means is the previous season's models typically drop in price: thus opening the door for those buyers that initially were holding out.

All told, i can't see any new AMD or Intel fans being "unhappy" with what they are shopping for in the way of CPU's. This is a very good time to be a buyer in the field of technological consumables - domestic or otherwise.

Sinceremente

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Sad

ptcruisergt Updated - 20th Oct 2009

Wow, is AMD really comparing to 3+ year-old Core 2 technology? This is sad.

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As far as I can tell

bobiroc 20th Oct 2009

they still used current Intel Model numbers that intel is selling today. You make it seem like they are comparing AMD chips to chips intel stopped producing 3 years ago. We know that the core i7 is supreme when it comes to performance today but that comes with a price. If I had more money than I knew what do to with then fine but when I can get an AMD Phenom X4 at 3.4Ghz for less than $250 and a Core i7 at 2.93Ghz at over $500 then I will take the savings. If you want to compare prices then you have to jump down to the Core i7 at 2.66Ghz. And lets be honest unless you are going to compare bragging rights that your computer can do a task a few seconds faster or have 10 more FPS on a game to justify the price hike then cool. In real world application and usage the speed difference is minimal and most people will not notice.

That being said both make good reliable processors and if AMD did anything it was to wake up Intel to put a little effort into their processor design. I feel Intel screwed consumers with the Pentium 4 and tried to play off the lack of consumer knowledge by pumping out processors of a high clock speed with poor performance. Many consumers equate megahertz/gigahertz with performance and do not spend time looking at all the benchmark tests. All the average consumer wants is a computer that is affordable, reliable, and does the tasks they need or want to do.

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And at what point is processor power overkill?

djchandler Updated - 20th Oct 2009

Yeah, the new i7-960 and the i7-965 EE can supposedly blow away the competition. The benchmarks say as much. For now.

To me there's no such thing as too much speed for a CPU, but it is all too often wasted on the vast majority of business and home users. They just don't need that much power. For some even a single-core atom will do for getting email, social networking and paying the bills. Kids playing games can use a fast CPU, but the i7s aren't great based on a cost/performance evaluation. Gamers are better off spending their money on a Dragon Platform solution from AMD with a Phenom II X4 and an ATI 5870 GPU for about the same or less money than the one i7-960. And so what if people buy Intel's CPUs. If they want a fast machine, they'll need to pair it with a great graphics card from Nvidia or ATI. So to get a GPU to complement that nearly $600 CPU, you'll need to spend about another $200-$300. Do the arithmetic.

Intel does some great PR. While AMD/ATI is deploying the single fastest chip ever, Intel has you eying its 80 core Larrabee vapor tech. Supposedly they'll do 2 TFlops if they can ever get a perfect chip with all 80 cores available. The Sony/Toshiba/IBM partnership has been selling 1 teraflop CELL processor chips in PS3s for 3 years now. You can gang several CELLs with an OS-capable front end such AMD Opteron-based components and kick Intel to the curb right now for not a whole lot of money..

I'd love to see a personal supercomputer based on ATI 5870s. Then we'd see who's smokin' who and who's just smokin' something else.

For what it's worth, the 5870 GPU does 2.72 teraflops single precision and is probably the most powerful chip ever made. That power can be easily harnessed for crunching numbers. Nvidia and ATI are showing up Intel with their GPUs. Meanwhile Intel stays with the CPU concept for the number crunching. IMO, that paradigm is outdated, and could bring about big changes when it comes to who the Big Dog is in the next couple of years.

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Agreed. AMD Has a Better Platform Overall

mikefarinha 20th Oct 2009

With AMD able to produce great chipsets, great GPUs and good CPUs they come out as better overall IMHO.

It seems to me that raw processing power isn't, as of now, as sought after as it was a few years ago. Software developers are *still* trying to catch up to 64-bit & multi-core phenomenon's that AMD brought to market quite a few years ago.

Intel's i7 processor is one monster of a CPU, no doubt, but when you have limited money and you're trying to build a well balanced and feature-rich machine then AMD is by far your best bet.

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a lil off topic, buti have a question

GAXXIS 21st Oct 2009

I have a intel celeron D x64 3.46Gh single core with 2G ram and a old GeForce FX 5500, yes i know is a dog of a card but it works and it fit my budget at the time , and i'm runnin Win 7 x32. what kind of change will i see when i upgrade to Win 7 x64 Home Prem. ? Thanks in Advance, I use my rig for Gaming and Music and internet Movies ect....

Gaxxis

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Your video card supports Pixel Shader 2.0.

Grayson Peddie 21st Oct 2009

How much memory does it have? You'll probably need
at least 64MB of Video Memory. If yours have
128MB, then I don't see a reason not to install
Windows 7 Home Premium in that machine.

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Your video card supports Pixel Shader 2.0.

GAXXIS 22nd Oct 2009

video mem is 512 total and 256 dedicated

Gaxxis

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Look at the 920 very reasonable and still i7

DevGuy_z 22nd Oct 2009

Plus the Penyrn based Quads are still competitive with AMD on both price and performance.

And apparently intels overclock better.

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It's not age it's Newegg

stano360 21st Oct 2009

What's relevant to consumers is not how old it is, but for most, it's bang for the buck.

The question is what is Intel or AMD selling for what price. Yes, we would all like new i7 systems, but we all can't afford or justify the price. The fact of the matter is to match the performance of my recent AMD purchase with Intel, I would have spent $75 more (and it would have been a low end Core2 quad core).

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Sad?

I Hate Malware 26th Oct 2009

Sad that AMD is comparing its products to comparable products that hold the major market share despite their age and platform? Wow , now you're sad.

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AMD has easier naming schemes

Joe_Raby 20th Oct 2009

AMD is building stuff for socket AM3 almost exclusively now, and the product lines are easier to understand than Intel's:

Athlon II: lower-end desktop processor
Phenom II: higher-end desktop processor

X2, X3, X4: number of cores

processor number: the higher the number, the faster the processor (all processors in the same family, eg. 4xx, 6xx, have the same features)

"e" at the end: energy-efficient variant of the non-e version of the same chip

The name of the CPU may be longer, but it's far simpler to understand than the difference between a Core 2 Duo E8400 and a Core i5 750.

And let's not forget that every Athlon II and Phenom II supports AMD's hardware virtualization technology too, so building an XP-Mode compatible system for Windows 7 is dead simple.

AMD may not be as competitive in the high-end market, but they certainly offer better performance value in the mainstream and low-end segment. Intel can only compete by brand recognition alone in that market space, but AMD is garnering some big partners, like HP, which hopefully lead to better pricing and features from increased competition with Intel.

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I suspect AMD is not competitive because

LegendsOfBatman 20th Oct 2009

It would appear that Intel used unfair tactics to hinder AMD chips from being used.
At least that's what I get from the entire EU fining against Intel.
Perhaps now that Intel has been fined and i suppose has to play fair, AMD can try to begin to become more competitive again.
Unfortunately, however, when it comes to technology, we know the better technologies don't always win out (Beta MAx, HD, for starters).
But, the good thing here is, perhaps it isn't too late. Things seem to change quickly, and who does well today, isnt always who does well tomorrow. While Intel has always had the edge financially, AMD has had a long history of outperforming Intel. NVidia has had a long history of outperforming ATI, altho, there for a short bit, ATI came out of nowhere and blew NVidia out of the water. Now, it appears they are doing so again. NVidia is almost dead, by some accounts. But, who knows? Maybe NVidia is laying low, and is planning a massive comeback attack. Maybe not.
The point is, perhaps this plan can be enough to bring AMD back into a more competitive edge and we can see the processor wars again, with both companies being excellent. That can't be bad.

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Intel may have been fined by the EU... but..

Well_Done 21st Oct 2009

As I'm not a fan of Intel by any regards...
And they most likely did use anti-competitive practices...
I still have to put part of the blame for AMD not selling up to par with Intel chips squarely on AMD's shoulders.
Because... When is the last time you seen an AMD processor in a television advertisement?
The long running "Intel Inside" ad blitz has every person on the planet knowing what an Intel processor is. Even people who wouldn't know a Computer from an I-Pod.
Ask them if they know what an AMD processor is...
And they look at you like you have 3 heads.
I use AMD processors...
And if AMD wants to sell more processors to a bigger slice of the market...
They have to let more people know they exist.
Because most people don't.

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Good energy-efficient processors at good price.

Grayson Peddie 20th Oct 2009

I'd certainly spend $9 more for an AMD Athlon II X2 235e
processor than an AMD Athlon II X2 240. happy

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Smart strategy on AMD's part!

LarryPTL 20th Oct 2009

Instead of throwing their resources at the high end of the market where Intel dominates, go for the niche markets that Intel ignores (i.e., low power consumption per MIPS). Even desktop and server markets can appreciate this kind of attitude.

Unless you are hosting a server farm or are engaged in the highest processing power interactive video games, AMD is more than cost competetive.

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It's a niche, but not a bad one to be in...

mark@... 20th Oct 2009

Looks like AMD is targeting two markets; low-cost PCs and low-power PCs. The total build cost with their new CPUs is a lot lower than with Core i5; not only are the CPUs less expensive, but so are AM3 motherboards and DDR2 memory, so you might see as much as a $100 savings in total system cost while still staying in a respectable place in the performance race.

Meanwhile, that new broad line of 45w TDP processors looks nice for HTPC builds, and they also have some decent integrated graphics to complete the system. I recently built an HTPC using an Athlon II 750 and a Gigabyte 785G motherboard; it already runs cool and one of those new 45W CPUs would have made it even better. The system is plenty fast for everything it's intended for, and displays 1080p video without even working hard.

In the long run AMD is going to have to find a way to become competitive again at the high end; that's where the fat manufacturing margins and profits are. Let's hope they're working on a next-generation architecture (something more radical than another tweak of the current line). If they're not their days are numbered, though for now these new chips will help them make some profits to fund that development.

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RE: AMD rolls out 8 new Athlon CPUs in time for Windows 7

bigpicture 20th Oct 2009

I think you hit on some of the AMD business model here. It is not about the raw
power of the CPU any more or even its power consumption to performance. It is
about the total system price/performance, which is the MB and the graphics and the
sound. AMD had something like this in mind when they purchased ATI.

This line up here looks aimed at the netbook market, where even ARM processors can
muscle is as viable competitors.

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RE: AMD rolls out 8 new Athlon CPUs in time for Windows 7

razr57 20th Oct 2009

I think it is great! I'm an AMD man myself. To me, it's a reliability issue. I'm a computer tech and see more Intel come in than AMD by a very large margin! Could that mean.............?

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RE: AMD rolls out 8 new Athlon CPUs in time for Windows 7

lonniemcclure 20th Oct 2009

The last time I checked (when I selected a 4850e for the heart of a HTPC), Intel offered NO 45W TDP dual core desktop processors. My only choice for less than 65W TDP from Intel for desktop processors were the 35W TDP single core Celeron 4x0 series.

A year later, and that still hasn't changed on the Intel side, while AMD offers both triple and quad cores for 45W TDP.