AMD launches new Athlon II and Phenom II CPUs

Today, AMD launched several microprocessors from Athlon II and Phenom II series, including a couple of energy-efficient models. Newly released Phenom II CPUs are dual-core X2 570 and quad-core X4 980. New Athlon IIs are standard voltage X3 460, and low-power X3 425e and X4 620e. While not all launched CPUs can be found in official AMD price list, all of them were added to product database on AMD website.

Phenom II 980 is the highest clocked AMD microprocessor to day. This quad-core CPU has 3.7 GHz operating frequency, and, been a Black Edition, can be overclocked even higher to achieve greater performance. The 570 model, also a Black Edition, has two cores, running at 3.5 GHz. Thermal Design Power of 980 and 570 processors is 125W and 80W respectively. Both SKUs have 512KB L2 cache per each core, and shared 6MB L3 cache. The X4 980 is priced at $185. The X2 570 is not on the AMD pricelist.

Athlon II X3 460 is a triple-core CPU with 3.4 GHz core frequency. This chip has 1.5 MB L2 cache, but doesn't have L3 cache. The 460 comes with $87 price sticker.

Energy efficient Athlon II 425e and 620e models feature only 45 Watt TDP, although they run at lower clock frequencies than more power-hungry Athlon II counterparts. The 425e has three CPU cores, and it's clocked at 2.7 GHz. The 620e with 4 cores operates at 100 MHz lower frequency, i.e. at 2.6 GHz. At this time AMD doesn't show prices for these models.

Two other microprocessors, that were expected this quarter, are quad-core Phenom II 850 and Athlon II X2 255e. Both parts can be considered Athlon II-class processors, because the Phenom II 850 model is based on less expensive Propus core, that doesn't include L3 cache. Status of these processors is unknown.

For brief specifications of new microprocessors please see the table below:

Model	Cores	Frequency	L2 cache	L3 cache	TDP	Price
Athlon II X3 425e	3	2.7 GHz	1.5 MB	N/A	45 Watt
Athlon II X3 460	3	3.4 GHz	1.5 MB	N/A	95 Watt	$87
Athlon II X4 620e	4	2.6 GHz	2 MB	N/A	45 Watt
Phenom II X2 570	2	3.5 GHz	1 MB	6 MB	80 Watt
Phenom II X4 980	4	3.7 GHz	2 MB	6 MB	125 Watt	$185