Introduction

First of all, I would like to thank AMD for providing the tested AMD Athlon II X4 645 processor sample, MSI for providing the 890FXA-GD70 motherboard and Links for providing the rest of the test setup.

After few months of keeping a low profile, AMD is refreshing its whole processor retail offer from top to bottom. While introducing new and faster models with increased clock, AMD is keeping its top price bars, lowering the prices of existing models and introducing new, faster ones in their place, like the AMD Athlon II X4 645.

In this review we take a look at the new addition to Athlon II family models, the fastest quad core Athlon II yet, named Athlon II X4 645 and clocked at an impressive 3.10 GHz, considering this is to be a budget processor. Aiming to be a powerful yet affordable general purpose processor, the new Athlon II X4 645 with its faster clocked cores is stepping into the upper middle market segment, ruled by slower Phenom II models and Intel's Core i3 and i5 processors. It will be interesting to see if the Athlon II X4 Series matured enough to take on these new challenges.

Packaging and Contents

We received our test sample in tray package, but the retail version packaging comes with AMD certified cooler, manual and three year warranty.