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1 2 3 4 5 6 NextAMD X4 610e & 910e: 45W & 65W Quad Cores Processors
June 27, 2010 by Lawrence Lee
| Product |
Athlon II X4 610e
AM3 Processor |
Phenom II X4 910e
AM3 Processor |
| Manufacturer |
AMD |
AMD |
| List Price |
US$145 |
US$175 |
It has been 4 years since Intel took the reins from AMD with Core 2, claiming
the performance crown and never looking back. To this day, AMD remains dominated
by their Santa Clara rivals, particularly in the high-end processor market.
While the glory days of Athlon 64 are long over, recently it seems they have
returned to their roots, delivering tremendous value with their budget CPUs,
the kind of chips that made them the popular alternative to Intel in the first
place. It is simply amazing that today you can purchase a reasonably fast triple
and quad core AMD desktop processor for as little as US$70 and US$100 respectively.
AMD is also known for producing energy efficient chips, models that are easily
recognizable by a lower case 'E' at the end. These CPUs are typically expensive
compared to the standard models and do not offer a great performance to cost
ratio. They do run cooler though and are thus ideal in smaller cases where heat
and the noise associated with dissipating it are problematic. The two main question
are A. are they as energy efficient as AMD claims, and B. are they worth the
extra cost?
|
AM3/LGA1156 4-thread Processors under US$200
|
|
Model
|
Clock Speed
|
Cache
(L2+L3)
|
TDP
|
Street Price†
|
|
Athlon II X4 610e
|
2.4 GHz
|
2 MB
|
45W
|
$145*
|
|
Athlon II X4 630
|
2.8 GHz
|
2 MB
|
95W
|
$100
|
|
Athlon II X4 635
|
2.9 GHz
|
2 MB
|
95W
|
$100
|
|
Athlon II X4 640
|
3.0 GHz
|
2MB
|
95W
|
$120
|
|
Phenom II X4 810
|
2.6 GHz
|
2+4 MB
|
95W
|
$140
|
|
Phenom II X4 910e
|
2.6 GHz
|
2+6 MB
|
65W
|
$175*
|
|
Phenom II X4 925
|
2.8 GHz
|
2+6 MB
|
95W
|
$140
|
|
Phenom II X4 945
|
3.0 GHz
|
2+6 MB
|
95W
|
$160
|
|
Phenom II X4 955 BE
|
3.2 GHz
|
2+6 MB
|
125W
|
$160
|
|
Phenom II X4 965 BE
|
3.4 GHz
|
2+6 MB
|
125W
|
$180
|
|
Core i3-530
|
2.93 GHz
|
0.5+4 MB
|
73W
|
$115
|
|
Core i3-540
|
3.06 GHz
|
0.5+4 MB
|
73W
|
$140
|
|
Core i5-650
|
3.2 GHz
|
0.5+4 MB
|
73W
|
$180
|
|
Core i5-660
|
3.33 GHz
|
0.5+4 MB
|
73W
|
$200
|
|
Core i5-661
|
3.33 GHz
|
0.5+4 MB
|
87W
|
$200
|
|
Core i5-750
|
2.66 GHz
|
1+8 MB
|
95W
|
$200
|
|
†prices rounded to nearest US$5
*retail 1000-unit tray price
Tested processors are in bold.
|
Enter the Athlon II X4 610e and the Phenom II X4 910e, a pair of quad core
chips with thermal design powers of 45W and 65W respectively. The downside is
they are clocked much slower than the competition. We will do our best to quantify
the performance and power difference.
|
CPU-Z screenshot: X4 610e at load.
|
|
CPU-Z screenshot: X4 610e at idle.
|
The Athlon II X4 610e is a US$145 processor with a TDP of only 45W, a clock
speed of 2.4 GHz, and 2MB (4 x 512KB) of L2 cache. Our sample had very low operating
voltages, 0.853V when idle, and 1.059V on load according to CPU-Z.
|
CPU-Z screenshot: X4 910e at load.
|
|
CPU-Z screenshot: X4 910e at idle.
|
The Phenom II X4 910e is a US$175 processor with a TDP of 65W, a clock speed
of 2.6 GHz, 2MB (4 x 512KB) of L2 cache, 6MB of L3 cache (L3 cache is the main
difference between the Phenom II and Athlon II). Our sample had operating voltages
of 0.982V when idle and 1.147V on load according to CPU-Z.
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