The Phenom II X2 550 is based on the same specifications as the rest of the Phenom II family, but featuring half as many cores being a dual-core processor. The new processor operates at 3.10GHz, so about 100MHz slower (per core) than the flagship X4 955, and is expected to sell for a compelling $102.

AMD is also breathing new life into the Athlon brand with today's launch of the Athlon II X2 250. This new dual-core Athlon is the first of four models scheduled for release, of which the X2 250 should be the fastest part clocked at 3.0GHz.

In our review we take a closer look at both processors specs, run our usual suite of benchmarks, test power consumption levels and overclocking performance of these new AMD CPUs.

Read the full review at:
http://www.techspot.com/review/171-a...omx2-athlonx2/

Please leave your feedback here.

Oh yes! Both are going to be *** kicking! Grab the Phenom Black edition and OC to 3.8GHz. Screw a quad core, unless you are a movie editor or web designer, Firefox, Photoshop and chat do not need 4 cores!

The pricing and performance of the Phenom II X2 is fantastic! AMD seems to be turning things around IMO.

Just one question: Do these new CPUs have any sort of power-saving feature like the EIST on the Core 2 CPUs?

AMD has what they call Cool'n'Quiet which is a CPU speed throttling and power saving technology introduced with their Athlon 64 processor line.

Oh, I didn't know it was active on the Phenoms as well. I just found out on the Wiki for Cool n' Quiet.

Thanks for the info though.

Will we be able to get an early preview of Lynnfield like at Anandtech? Or will we have to wait for a review when they release?

I'm waiting on benches, until then I'll disregard amd competing in the low/mid sector. I hope these are promising though.

What do you mean you are waiting for the benches?

great review, thanks

Using the AMD overclocking software utility Overdrive, anyone can overclock the 550BE. The 550 Black Edition is made and intended to be overclocked. The fact that it has so much temp headroom to play with one could say the OC benchmarks should be considered as the everyday performance level AMD intended. The OC benchmarks of this CPU are incredible showing a performance boost of 12-22%. It competes and many times wins with CPUs selling from $165-$265 or even more. My 550 is at 3.6GHz on stock fan with idle at 27c and full load at 47c. This chip is rated to 52c continuous. The 550BE has the same L3 cache as a 955BE 4X core with an amazing total of 7MB cache.... on a dual core. That has to be the most on any dual core. Only two cores share all this cache at very high clock as opposed to splitting it up 4 ways. This explains how a 550BE can surpass its quad core brothers in a good number of benchmarks. Its still a very new chip as it just getting into its second year of production. Its priced at around $80.00 now. About 80%of these chips can have the 2 extra cores turned on in about two minutes. Now it is a 550/955BE. You can game as a 550 and design as a 955. In real world usage you can do anything amazingly fast and smooth.This is the best value for the dollar chip in the world.

One of the worst Processor it sucks. I bought 10days ago and its heat up such like nothing...better dont go for any AMD.