Monday, September 7th 2009
AMD Updating Athlon II X2 Lineup
AMD is adding to its value dual-core processor lineup with a new high-speed part. The Athlon II X2 255 (PIB model: ADX255OCK23GQ) is based on the 45 nm Regor die, and packs a clock speed of 3.10 GHz (15.5 x 200 MHz). Each core has a dedicated L2 cache of 1 MB (2 MB total cache), and the TDP is rated at 65W. Based on the socket AM3 package, it supports DDR3 and DDR2 memory standards. Expected to be out soon, the Athlon II X2 255 could displace the Athlon II X2 250, while being priced lower than the Phenom II X2 550.
10 Comments on AMD Updating Athlon II X2 Lineup
AMD seems to be spitting out processors like there's no tomorrow, bit like they were doing with GPUs a while ago.
With the processors, the new Phenom II architecture is just being released. So they are just filling in the line-up. It is pretty common for a new architecture to get a lot of new processors early on. And the new processors are actually filling holes in the line-up, unlike the GPUs which are just reconfigurations that ended up having little difference compared to GPUs that were already on the market.
Also, the low-end fill is largely due to the discontinuation of all of the old 65nm Athlon X2 parts, including the popular low-wattage 4xxxe chips. This is well-appreciated by budget PC builders, as well as enthusiasts looking to get energy-efficient chips to overclock on the cheap.