Athlon II X4 620 and 630 reviewed
AMD's ATHLON II X4 MODEL 620 broke cover yesterday, with most hardware sites giving in to oohing and aahing over the sub-$100 processor. It was accompanied by its model 630 brother with a $20 mark-up.
Being the first quad core to retail at under $100, there was good reason for the reviewers to congratulate AMD. Performance is about on par with a Q8200 from Intel, despite AMD not having nailed overall power consumption yet.
The 2.6GHz Athlon II X4 620 is not the same die as a Phenom II, nor is it a double-up on an Athlon II X2. The new die has less L2 cache - 512KB per core as opposed to the Athlon II X2’s 1MB per core - otherwise AMD would have some serious line-up problems.
The bottom-line is this - you can now get away with building a quad core system on a cheap motherboard with plenty of RAM and a cheap HDD for under $300. Businesses should love this, as should integrators.
Here are a few, or rather most of, the reviews of this chip from around the world wide wibble:
Still, there is much to be said about other hardware on review…
Nettops are finally gaining some momentum as you can see with MSI’s Wind Top AIO. It looks like a fusion of Formac’s Gallery LCDs and a mini-ITX system. Shockingly, it *isn’t* an Atom system, it’s an Athlon X2 on the back. Benchmark Reviews has a test.
Hardware Secrets tested Biostar’s TA785GE 128M motherboard. The thrifty board packs a lot in a small footprint (micro-ATX) and adds 128MB of sideport memory for the graphics. Should make for a cheap integrator or DIY board – especially if you’re considering buying a quad-core Athlon II.
Fudzilla focuses on the 9600GT Silent Cell graphics card from Gigabyte. Could be a good option for an HTPC, but the price might not please everyone. Costs as much as an HD 4870…
Rage 3D covered the ATI Eyefinity launch onboard the USS Hornet. You get your Vision explained to you here.
Hardware Zone looks at the “Eco” version of the 9800GT. This type of card is slightly downclocked, compared to the original, but they do have the advantage of a lower operating temp. An SLI HTPC could be do-able with these.
Big Bruin takes the Cooler Master Storm Advance gaming mouse on the bench. Worth reading if not for the fact this if the company’s first mouse.
Hardware Canucks tests the OCZ Summit 128GB SSD. The drive comes with a massive 128MB cache and performs at astonishing speeds. It does, however, need a firmware update to get up to spec. So some tweaking is required.
Xbit Labs has an interesting face-off between AMD’s 785G and Intel’s G45 IGPs. Well, interesting despite predictable as these are essentially different generations of hardware. The G45 is good on power but falls behind the 785G on most other tasks... but then again, there’s only so much gaming taking place on IGPs. µ
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Scrutinized by Ray Ban SS sniffing ports of Wnom Once graced this Port, Now reports from inside Beasts heart:
Barack Obama to visit Global Foundries
Sylvie Barak - 17 Sep 09, 11:59am
Chip of Staff
GLOBALFOUNDRIES
Slashdot Newsvine Delicious Stumble
Global Foundries seems to believe it's in the running for a Presidential treat, as the White House confirmed on Wednesday that President Obama would be traveling to Saratoga to deliver a speech at the Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) on Monday.
Obama will apparently be discussing the economy and industry sources say it's more than likely Global Foundries will "figure prominently" into the President's visit based on the close relationship between the Foundry and HVCC
Luther Forest IS FAB II.
DRASHEK Snifiemeone