The AMD Athlon II X3 420e was a desktop processor with 3 cores, launched in September 2010. It is part of the Athlon II X3 lineup, using the Rana architecture with Socket AM3. Athlon II X3 420e has 512 KB of L2 cache per core and operates at 2.6 GHz. AMD is making the Athlon II X3 420e on a 45 nm production node using 300 million transistors. The multiplier is locked on Athlon II X3 420e, which limits its overclocking potential.
With a TDP of 45 W, the Athlon II X3 420e consumes typical power levels for a modern PC. AMD's processor supports DDR3 memory with a dual-channel interface. For communication with other components in the system, Athlon II X3 420e uses a PCI-Express Gen 2 connection. Although the processor doesn't come with integrated graphics, certain motherboards with compatible chipsets can provide this capability.
Hardware virtualization is available on the Athlon II X3 420e, which greatly improves virtual machine performance.