# AMD Athlon II X2 240 2.80 GHz



## Omega (Oct 17, 2009)

AMD's Athlon II X2 240 is set out to deliver a best-in-class experience for less than $60. Even though it has only two cores it can deliver in many benchmarks including gaming. Its attractive price point and undervolting capabilities also make it an interesting choice for a budget oriented media PC setup.

*Show full review*


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## FilipM (Oct 24, 2009)

Man, awesome CPU for budget builds!


Great review, keep it up!


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## Imsochobo (Oct 24, 2009)

I just built a system for i cant say how cheap, its like half the price of a budget HP, man theese cpu's are killers ;D
Unfortunatly for amd, they gotta sell PHII to sell theese, cause they are basicly the same if im right, just faulty DIE's with disabled parts of it. like cache, cores, kudos to amd to being able to get so many cpu's out of one design, just like theyve done on the ATI side of things.
Now amd, make the performance, just like you guys did with ati 

Maybe we will see faster evolution on the cpu parts aswell


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## ShRoOmAlIsTiC (Oct 24, 2009)

just bought 2 of these and 2 MSI 785g's for htpc builds.  Cant wait for them to get here.  Should be more then enough power for an htpc.  Only down part is the no 7.1 lpmc on the 785g


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 25, 2009)

I would love to see a Black Edition model Athlon II X2


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## mechtech (Oct 25, 2009)

Very nice review Omega.

One thing that would have greatly interested me would have been how it compared to an AM2 5600+ Windsor (90nm, 2.8 ghz and 1 meg cache)

Can it be done??


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## LittleLizard (Oct 25, 2009)

eidairaman1 said:


> I would love to see a Black Edition model Athlon II X2



i want to see that too. it would be awesome

EDIT:



mechtech said:


> Very nice review Omega.
> 
> One thing that would have greatly interested me would have been how it compared to an AM2 5600+ Windsor (90nm, 2.8 ghz and 1 meg cache)
> 
> Can it be done??



dont know but because of the SSE4A, 2GHZ HT and improvements on the arquitecture i say is better the athlon II


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## TheLaughingMan (Oct 25, 2009)

I can Digg it.


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## Omega (Oct 25, 2009)

mechtech said:


> One thing that would have greatly interested me would have been how it compared to an AM2 5600+ Windsor (90nm, 2.8 ghz and 1 meg cache)
> 
> Can it be done??



I'm afraid not... for now at least. 
In few weeks I'll be transferring test setup to Windows7, after that I'll test every model i can get my hands on to build a good database... but those Windsor models are long gone and EOL, don't really know what purpose would it have to test them.

I did a similar review for Croatian site in the past, Athlon II X2 250 3.0 GHz compared to Athlon64 X2 6000+ 3.1 GHz (Brisbane), and the new Athlon was faster something like ~25% overall. In gaming it would outperform the old Athlon64 X2 by 20-30 FPS when not GPU limited.


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## Zubasa (Oct 25, 2009)

Imsochobo said:


> I just built a system for i cant say how cheap, its like half the price of a budget HP, man theese cpu's are killers ;D
> Unfortunatly for amd, they gotta sell PHII to sell theese, cause they are basicly the same if im right, just faulty DIE's with disabled parts of it. like cache, cores, kudos to amd to being able to get so many cpu's out of one design, just like theyve done on the ATI side of things.
> Now amd, make the performance, just like you guys did with ati
> 
> Maybe we will see faster evolution on the cpu parts aswell


The Athlon IIs are "native" dies by now (except the X3), they are all manufactured without an L3 cache. 
AMD is not stupid, they know they can't sell Phenoms II for Athlon II price for ever.


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## Apocolypse007 (Oct 25, 2009)

error correction: In the specs section you have the celeron listed as an AMD CPU.


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## ooiman92 (Oct 25, 2009)

*Typo*

I LOLed when I saw this: "AMD Celeron E1600"  on the specifications table, page two. 

Edit: whoops I guess Apocolypse007 beat me to it xD


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## Mussels (Oct 25, 2009)

ooh ooh i have one of these!
i'm a little disapointed you didnt do UNDERclocking tests for HTPC use - mine goes as low as 1.1v for 2.8Ghz, making it far lower in power consumption.

according to this tool, it goes from 65W to 39W


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## vagxtr (Oct 25, 2009)

> and AMD-V technology... it's clear that Intel needs something fresh in the lower market segments. Probably the most important feature is the AMD's virtualization technology, which Intel supports only with higher end Core 2 Duos and Core 2 Quad processor



sorry but where did you get this misinformation. In new 45nm AthonII AMD decided to run pretty devious politics and to DISABLE AMD-V according to all their official spcs. So did you test your chip that in fact it has AMD-VI?

__EDIT__

hmhm they now claim Virtualization support while they clearley noted Virtualization *No*
http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?detailId=587&id=562&id=586&id=587



so[/QUOTE]


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## Omega (Oct 25, 2009)

Apocolypse007 said:


> error correction: In the specs section you have the celeron listed as an AMD CPU.



Fixed, thanks.



Mussels said:


> ooh ooh i have one of these!
> i'm a little disapointed you didnt do UNDERclocking tests for HTPC use - mine goes as low as 1.1v for 2.8Ghz, making it far lower in power consumption.



ummm... did you check the power consumption page? If you read the first introduction page you would have known that undervolting will me tested.



vagxtr said:


> sorry but where did you get this misinformation. In new 45nm AthonII AMD decided to run pretty devious politics and to DISABLE AMD-V according to all their official spcs. So did you test your chip that in fact it has AMD-VI?


You are contradicting yourself. First you say it's disabled and then you post a link to processors official specs where it says virtualization is supported


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## Mussels (Oct 25, 2009)

Omega said:


> ummm... did you check the power consumption page? If you read the first introduction page you would have known that undervolting will me tested.



whaaat, read EVERY page? what do you think i am! 

(i somehow missed that page)


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## Omega (Oct 25, 2009)

Undervolting or underclocking will be standard feature of all incoming TPU CPU reviews, and it will always be shown on power consumption page


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## pantherx12 (Oct 25, 2009)

Omega said:


> Undervolting or underclocking will be standard feature of all incoming TPU CPU reviews, and it will always be shown on power consumption page




Nice that will be really handy!


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## Mussels (Oct 25, 2009)

my only wish is that you find a way to find out the CPU's actual power use, as opposed to just the entire PC - find the lowest clocked CPU you can, slap it in and underclock and volt as low as you can (say, a single core sempron at 600MHz) and then do wattage tests so you can figure out how much the CPU itself is using with some degree of accuracy.


when it comes to media PC, or mATX/mITX systems *true* wattage numbers for the CPU's (and not AMD's really inaccurate TDP figures) would be quite valuable to the community (especially CnQ/undervolted numbers)


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## vagxtr (Oct 25, 2009)

Omega said:


> You are contradicting yourself. First you say it's disabled and then you post a link to processors official specs where it says virtualization is supported



Well i know i'm contradicting myself but that doesnt answers on my question. Does that proc has really virtualization support as it should ever since AM2 F2 rev? Cause before they released x3/x4 Athlons AMD clearly stated ON SAME PAGES that these _*x2 Athlons doesnt support virtualization*_  as i stated before (in my contradictions)


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## Mussels (Oct 25, 2009)

strange, i'm pretty sure the virtualization isn't showing where it should be on mine either

i dont have any other AMD's to compare to (and i havent made sure its on in the BIOS on that system, i assume it should be on by default) but i beleive it should be showing in that "instructions" line, and its not


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## vagxtr (Oct 25, 2009)

Mussels said:


> http://img.techpowerup.org/091025/Capture215.jpg
> 
> 
> strange, i'm pretty sure the virtualization isn't showing where it should be on mine either
> ...



There's official AMD-V tool that was used in the old days to state does system support virtualizations (NF4 boards didn't support it for example) so as all new AM2+/AM3 boards now support it running it would proof is old F2/F3 and G1/G2 and phenomI AMD-V still there or disabled as they stated before.

when they release athlon II x 620/6530BE a month and half go it was very strange to me that newely released athlons x4 support (fully?) AMD-V while old x2 240/245/250BE doesn't (so idid firsty learned about that just mont and half ago). Deceptive AMD?


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## Mussels (Oct 25, 2009)

if you find a link to a program capable of testing, i'll run it and screenshot it


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## vagxtr (Oct 25, 2009)

Mussels said:


> if you find a link to a program capable of testing, i'll run it and screenshot it



They fu their official site since they Fuse it (earlier this year inm?) but tools is still there support->processor. And it's newer release so it should recognize newer PII virtualization also.

http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dyn...cd2c08-1432-4756-aafa-4d9dc646342f&ItemID=177

btw. Some old am2 boards have fu BIOS like mine so wen i Disable Virtualization it's actually Ebnabled (and it cames Disabled by default so it should be understandable by itself )


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## Mussels (Oct 25, 2009)




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## vagxtr (Oct 25, 2009)

Thanks. That's seems reasonable cause it was weird enough that AMD suddenly drop down AMD-V support from the newer cpus and ollow intels devious path by not including VT or SpeedStep in their entry cpus just to profit on their more lucrative products.


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## Omega (Oct 25, 2009)

Mussels said:


> my only wish is that you find a way to find out the CPU's actual power use, as opposed to just the entire PC - find the lowest clocked CPU you can, slap it in and underclock and volt as low as you can (say, a single core sempron at 600MHz) and then do wattage tests so you can figure out how much the CPU itself is using with some degree of accuracy.



I will run some tests with Sempron LE-140... I see what are you getting at, but i fear those measurements will be inaccurate as TDP


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## Mussels (Oct 25, 2009)

Omega said:


> I will run some tests with Sempron LE-140... I see what are you getting at, but i fear those measurements will be inaccurate as TDP



i've got my media PC down to 50W idle, and thats with a 10W IDE HDD and 4 sticks of DDR2 ram

you should be able to get something within 10% of the real numbers - moreso if you use say, two PSU's and run the HDD and fans off a second PSU (use onboard VGA if possible, while determining numbers)


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## Omega (Oct 25, 2009)

Please think twice before suggesting something like that :shadedshu
That would mean I'd have to have two platforms for testing Intel/AMD CPU's, and another two setups just to check the power consumption of those CPU's. 

What I can try to do is go as low as possible on speed/voltage with Sempron LE-140 on current AMD test platform and that would give me some insight of platform consumption "without" CPU. But still i don't see how could i measure the Load power draw, as you can't run memory and vga on another PSU


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## Mussels (Oct 25, 2009)

its just an idea - if its not practical its not practical.


you can find out VGA and ram with ease - test with one stick of ram at idle and load, stick in another stick. measure the difference - repeat til all slots are filled.

you can use the change as each ram stick was added to determine how much wattage each stick used, with knowledge of any variations based on single/dual channel changes.

as for VGA, find a 512KB PCI card that can barely boot windows XP and do some power testing - then repeat with your real card, to find out how much it uses 


(what, you told me to think about this  )


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## Omega (Oct 25, 2009)

I appreciate any suggestions... no matter how complicated they sound 
Anyways, I will do some testings and let you know the results


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## FilipM (Oct 25, 2009)

Omega said:


> Please think twice before suggesting something like that :shadedshu
> That would mean I'd have to have two platforms for testing Intel/AMD CPU's, and another two setups just to check the power consumption of those CPU's.
> 
> What I can try to do is go as low as possible on speed/voltage with Sempron LE-140 on current AMD test platform and that would give me some insight of platform consumption "without" CPU. But still i don't see how could i measure the Load power draw, as you can't run memory and vga on another PSU




You can run Mobo (mobo/cpu/ram) on one PSU, VGA and peripherals on another PSU. (Those Thermaltake drive bay PSU's - only run VGA on them)

1. Try one stick of ram, then try two, the diference in power consumtion measured will tell you the consumption of the ram (as Musseles suggested). 

Take out the ram out of the total thing, and you end up with CPU+mobo, now if we can have a guess at how much the board consumes it would be nice - ending up only with CPU. 

2. For VGA is easy, just get another PSU, run only the VGA on it and measure consumption again - you end up with the VGA.

Same process as for the VGA goes for HDD's DVD drives, Floppy, etc - in a few words - you need two PSU's.


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## Omega (Oct 25, 2009)

You are forgetting that VGA draws power from the PCI-E slot. Still leaves the MBO power draw unknown.


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## Mussels (Oct 25, 2009)

File_1993 said:


> Take out the ram out of the total thing, and you end up with CPU+mobo, now if we can have a guess at how much the board consumes it would be nice - ending up only with CPU.



thats where the single core CPU comes in (sempron, in this case) - clock it down really low at really low volts, and its idle will be practically nil, with load <10W



Omega said:


> You are forgetting that VGA draws power from the PCI-E slot. Still leaves the MBO power draw unknown.



thus my suggestion of an antique PCI graphics card, the pure 2D kind with <4MB of ram  - the kind that use 5W of power
you wouldnt be able to use anything other than XP, but you can do idle and (non 3D) load, to determine the values for CPU, motherboard and ram


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## Omega (Oct 25, 2009)

Aren't we going with this the wrong way?
Why exclude all of the hardware when I need baseline for complete test setup under IDLE/LOAD "without" the CPU.

I just clock down the Sempron as much as it can go, do the consumption idle/load measurements and remove say ~10W from load results. When measuring system power draw with stock CPU, that result is reduced by "baseline" system power draw and it should show the aprox. CPU draw only.

Right?


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## FilipM (Oct 25, 2009)

Yep, if you want a whole system without a CPU, clock the Sempron down as much as it can go, and remove ~10W from the total power consumption - you end up with a baseline to start from for an AMD system


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## Omega (Oct 25, 2009)

Right... and I could do the same thing for LGA775 with Celeron 430. Now, all we need is single core LGA1156 and LGA1336 processors 

I'll give it a go on AMD platform for starters, and see what numbers come up.


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## FilipM (Oct 25, 2009)

Hmm, i've just been on Everest, and in the Computer/Sensor section at the bottom there are two interesting things about CPU's - Current Values (as in ampers) and Power Values (as in watts).

Now i've just been idling and it showed 9.78W / 7.11A. Can this be taken as accurate or what? If i calculate the voltage according to those, it looks about right.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 26, 2009)

I expect Athlon II X4s to have 4MB L2 (1MB for every core) shortly


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## vagxtr (Oct 26, 2009)

Mussels said:


> thats where the single core CPU comes in (sempron, in this case) - clock it down really low at really low volts, and its idle will be practically nil, with load <10W
> 
> 
> 
> ...



You dont need to go that far. Some RivaTNT 16MB or RadeonVE 32MB on PCI slot shouldn't use much more than 3-5W in 2D, hardly 10W in 3D mode (How much power could be dissipated from card with small 40x40x10 passive heatsink thats lukewarm in 3D? Just for peace of mind and server usage stability imho)
But why should we go in such trouble when the whole chipset (IGP+SB) on modern 785G shouldnt use 10W when loaded with 14USB, 6SATA, *IDE* and when comes down to just one SATA HDD (Spinpoint F2 1.5TB claims only 5.2W in write/read) and no external USB activity (legacy Keyboard, mouse shouldnt use much power i guess, and down clocked memory to ddr2-4200 @1.8V (533Hz) shouldn use more than 3-4W (when ddr2-800/1066 @1.8V claims less than 5W consumption). Dont forget to loose timings if possible to 4-4-4 from 3-3-3.
So the whole mobo(excl.cpu-pwm)+hdd+memory setup could use as low as 10-12W with heavy hdd-memory activity. And btw i dont see much of use to downclock AthlonLE/SempronLE so deeply to 600MHz only cause they hardly use 2-3W more on same voltage at 1200MHz. I know that x2 @65nm usually regularly work 1500-1700Mhz@0.825V with default CPU/5 memory divider (600-680MHz) and with these CPU probably didnt go above 20W and cosidering 45nm and only one core these cold be as low as 7W and how low could it be @600MHz <2W.

1. DDR2 memory probably could run at all on AM2 mobo at 600MHz CPU frequency?
2. How could you downclock AMD AM2 cpu beyond 1000MHz eitherway, when lowest allowed multi is x5 and lowest HTT-FSB is 200MHz??
3. Power usage should be lower on AM3 based boards with LV-DDR3 (1.35V) but is that memory supported by AMDs PII? What is lowest memory frequency (divider also) on AM3 boards?


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## Mussels (Oct 26, 2009)

vagxtr said:


> You dont need to go that far. Some RivaTNT 16MB or RadeonVE 32MB on PCI slot shouldn't use much more than 3-5W in 2D, hardly 10W in 3D mode (how much power could be dissipated from card with small 40x40x10 passive heatsink?)
> But why should we go in such trouble when the whole chipset (IGP+SB) on modern 785G shouldnt use 10W when loaded with 14USB, 6SATA, *IDE* and when comes down to just one SATA HDD Spinpoit F2 claims (5.2W in write/read) and no external USB activity (legacy Keyboard, mouse shouldnt use much power i guess, and down clocked memory to ddr2-4200 @1.8V (533Hz) shouldn use more than 3-4W (when ddr2-800/1066 @1.8V claims less than 5W consumption). Dont forget to loose timings if possible to 4-4-4 from 3-3-3.
> So the whole mobo(excl.cpu-pwm)+hdd+memory setup could use as low as 10-12W with heavy hdd-memory activity. And btw i dont see much of use to downclock Athlons so deeply to 600MHz only cause they hardly use 2-3W more on same voltage at 1200MHz. I know that x2 @65nm usually regularly work 1500-1700Mhz@0.825V with default CPU/5 memory divider (600-680MHz) and with these CPU probably didnt go above 20W and cosidering 45nm and only one core these cold be as low as 7W and how low could it be @600MHz <2W.
> 
> ...



you make valid points, as for the low clocks... easy, turn the FSB below 200  board depending (i've seen chips with 4x multipliers, however they were older ones)


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## vagxtr (Oct 27, 2009)

Mussels said:


> you make valid points, as for the low clocks... easy, turn the FSB below 200  board depending (i've seen chips with 4x multipliers, however they were older ones)



Wait, is this possible on regular boards? Is some BIOS mod needed for it?


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## EnglishLion (Oct 27, 2009)

I'm glad to see a good review of this chip - I just advised a mate to buy one!

As for power consumption, I don't think you'll be able to arrive at a CPU only value.  IMO it would be better to offer a minimum total system value.  In other words try to run the component in a system with minimal power draw.

Choose a low power motherboard, one stick of RAM, no optical drive, 2.5" HDD or SDD, onboard VGA.  This would show how low you can go with the CPU, after all no-one is ever going to run just a CPU on it's own!

Some of the socketed ITX boards offer low power running as a priority.

BTW my HTPC idles at 63W (not quite as good as my server @ 26W though)


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## Omega (Oct 27, 2009)

Way too complicated, time consuming and not really that practical.
We will stick with the total system consumption for time being, and for future test I will try to do some experiments.

There is an "suggestions" thread opened, so if you have any good ideas, please present them in THIS thread. We are working hard to bring you best CPU reviews possible, but it will be hard without your support. Thanks!


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Oct 27, 2009)

dugg


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## vipz (Mar 22, 2010)

is there any comparison table between phenom965 be and athlon II 240.I want know the fps difference between two cpu's with same test setup.


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## Mussels (Mar 23, 2010)

gaah, please edit that post - you dont need a quote of the entire review


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## Omega (Mar 23, 2010)

AMD AM3 processors round-up coming up soon.


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## bmwracer (Apr 6, 2010)

Hi, I just joined this forum... Is there a way to get a printable view of the review of this CPU?

Thanks for your help.


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## vagxtr (Apr 10, 2010)

bmwracer said:


> Hi, I just joined this forum... Is there a way to get a printable view of the review of this CPU?
> 
> Thanks for your help.



There were that option until Nov/Dec last year. Then they disabled it and now its totally removed .... It's inspired by other portals bad style to disable that feature recently (in last 2-3yrs)


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## bmwracer (Apr 10, 2010)

vagxtr said:


> There were that option until Nov/Dec last year. Then they disabled it and now its totally removed .... It's inspired by other portals bad style to disable that feature recently (in last 2-3yrs)


What a drag. 

It'd have been nice to have a hardcopy to reference to rather than constantly have to refer back to this review...


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## mikeledevito (Dec 27, 2010)

"Sadly, the tested model gave faulty temperature readings, like many other AMD processors out there. Under idle it showed a reading below the ambient temperature, which was enough to dismiss readings as not valid. AMD Overdrive was used to monitor the core temperature."

HI,
I have this CPU and I am satisfied with it very much. It gives a lot of performances, it is silent and it`s not heating up at all. Actually, I just check my ambient temperature and it is 18 C degrees while in the same time the CPU shows 24 C degrees which is great as I just stopped playing 2 hours stalker clear sky.  Why do you think this CPU is showing faulty info of its temperature. I think 45 nm give him more better heating up, that`s all;


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 28, 2010)

mikeledevito said:


> "Sadly, the tested model gave faulty temperature readings, like many other AMD processors out there. Under idle it showed a reading below the ambient temperature, which was enough to dismiss readings as not valid. AMD Overdrive was used to monitor the core temperature."
> 
> HI,
> I have this CPU and I am satisfied with it very much. It gives a lot of performances, it is silent and it`s not heating up at all. Actually, I just check my ambient temperature and it is 18 C degrees while in the same time the CPU shows 24 C degrees which is great as I just stopped playing 2 hours stalker clear sky.  Why do you think this CPU is showing faulty info of its temperature. I think 45 nm give him more better heating up, that`s all;



He is speaking of his specific sample for the review. Not stating all samples of this model and/or batch.


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## Mussels (Dec 28, 2010)

also, just because your ambient is lower than the readout doesnt mean its not wrong.


It could be 10C ambient and your CPU reading 30C, but it might really be 40C


it doesnt really matter if its out, so long as the CPU works - but its still annoying that they read wrong.


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## mikeledevito (Dec 28, 2010)

No but, really, sometimes when I come home and I usually left my windows half open (bear in mind it`s winter time) but not too cold like in say St. Pete, I start my comp and Everest say my CPU is from 7,8 up to 10,11 C. So while I am running applications and fave game, so after an hour it gets up to 20 and finally as a maximum temperature, (meaning the room is heated up and machine is working in full load) it says 30 C. Thus this is the down and up limit for my cp unit. But I have one question then...This short temperature variables, can that affect CPU bad in time cuz of possible condensation...or I shouldn't`t think about that...!?  Thx!


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## mikeledevito (Dec 28, 2010)

"it doesnt really matter if its out, so long as the CPU works - but its still annoying that they read wrong."

Agree !


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## JrRacinFan (Dec 28, 2010)

There wouldn't be any condensation because your cpu and/or hsf isnt colder than your ambient air. it's warmer.


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