AMD's Athlon II X3 435 & New Energy Efficient CPUs: Killing Intel Below $90
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 20, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
We'll start with the good news first. The Athlon II X3 435, priced at $87, is a better buy than any of the similarly priced Intel dual-core processors. In heavily threaded applications it's even faster than the more expensive Core 2 Duo E7500. Compared to Intel, the X3 435 is a clear value leader.
The problem is compared to AMD, the Athlon II X3 435 isn't that impressive. The Athlon II X4 620 is faster in nearly every multithreaded benchmark, and it's only costs $12 more. It's only in games and other lightly threaded applications where the 435's higher default clock speed makes up for its lack of a fourth core.
The Athlon II X3 435 is about $15 more expensive than it should be to make sense in AMD's lineup. It's a great step between the dual and quad-core options, but if you need the performance you're probably better off with the 620.
You do get better overclocking potential (thanks to lower thermal output of only three cores), but bring overclocking into the mix and you can narrow the clock speed gap with an overclocked 620.
Compared to Intel, I like the Athlon II X3 435. Compared to AMD, I'd take a quad-core 620.
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ecvs85 - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
maddoctor in real life must be a women who just dumped by her boyfriend that works in AMD's CPU development team :)maddoctor - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
Intel products are cheaper. Price/performance ration is more favourable to Intel products. Only AMDiot will like AMD products.SunSamurai - Sunday, November 1, 2009 - link
Without AMD, intel would not have cheap processors. DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT IDIOT?StevoLincolnite - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
[quote]Intel products are cheaper. Price/performance ration is more favourable to Intel products. Only AMDiot will like AMD products.[/quote]Both company's are good, and both have good price/performance depending on the targeted market demographic.
Lunyone - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
I like that AMD is bringing out a x3 based off of the Athlon II's. This makes sense, so they can sell more chips/wafer. I think for the $12 difference I'd rather have the x4 620, but that is just me. I do like that they have come out with more power friendly CPU's too, especially for those thinking of a quieter HTPC!! I know that the Intel CPU's generally OC better, but most people don't OC at all so having a cheaper/better based clocked CPU is a win/win for consumers. Maybe we'll see a price drop during the Christmas rush, maybe not.sinshixxi - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - link
yea $12 diff com'on, who gonna save it for x3. Maybe lower grade x3 the $76 would have an edge comparing to $99 x4. $22 I wouldn't save it. $99 x4 just simply kick ass.Sledge hammer - Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
this triple core outperforms the intel E8400 and E8500 that cost 100 dollars more.http://www.guru3d.com/article/athlon-ii-x3-435-pro...">http://www.guru3d.com/article/athlon-ii-x3-435-pro...
coldpower27 - Friday, October 30, 2009 - link
That is Intel's Premium Dual Core line, it's no longer the best price/performance ratio in relation to Intel's own products.there are cheaper alternatives...
You can get pretty much the same performance with the E7600 and a little bit less with the E7500 vs the E8000's. So the difference is reduced to around 50 USD.
The thing is those processors are barely 82mm2 and cost 130-150USD vs the 169mm2 90USD processor, Intel's margin is simply way higher.
Intel doesn't really compete in the Tri-Core space really. It'a niche AMD gets to enjoy because Intel has no interest in competing there for now.
- Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
I think most folk can’t see the potential paradigm shift of the direction AMD is moving, all the while remaining consistent to their eccobeliefs- "less power more production". Their Opteron multicore processor stresses low power with multiple cores- I think it’s clear looking at the Opteron and their other recent chips that AMD is not competing with Intel for the top speed honors or the fastest Giga chip. We have also seen perhaps closer relationships between AMD Apple, AMD Microsoft directly connected by AMDs graphic card products 4000 series, OpenCL, directX11, direct Compute... The giga-chip wars are over, AMD has been preparing for the end-of-day future is now, for a while now. It’s no longer about pumping the power of the CPU, because all the processing power one ever needs goes unused; we've all had this river of untapped processing power in our computers for some time now. The power is in the GPU; coupled with current low watt multicore processors, while using OpenCl, DirectX11, direct-compute, CPU-GPU becomes both the redeemer and the grim reaper at the same time. The second stage is the bonding between GPU & CPU- LlanoOn another note- I personally don’t believe Larrabee will be developed in time, if at all work as promised. I belive they were late in seeing
- Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - link
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