AMD readying new triple-core Athlon II processors

[Jos]

AMD is reportedly getting ready to add a couple more Athlon II X3 processors to its lineup, the Athlon II X3 445 and Athlon II X3 450. The latter is slated for a launch in the third quarter of this year, according to Fudzilla, which quotes a clock speed of 3.2GHz and a 95W power envelope. The chip will be based on the 45nm "Rana" core, meaning there will be 1.5MB of shared L2 cache and support for DDR3 RAM 1333 MHz, but no L3 cache at all.

The Athlon II X3 445 will feature a similar architecture and at 3.1GHz should provide a small performance bump over today's triple-core flagship, the X3 440. Prior reports also suggest AMD is readying a quad-core Athlon II X4 640, presumably with a 3GHz clock speed, and a 45W part clocked at 2.5GHz known as the Athlon II X3 415e. Unfortunately, the exact launch dates and prices for these chips have yet to be announced.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/38512-amd-readying-new-triple-core-athlon-ii-processors.html

 

[Route44]

Interesting. When the first triple cores came out the reaction was, "What is this?!" and yet they seem to be very popular. The 720 was especially so but that had the L3 cache.

 

[thatguyandrew92]

The triple core seems useless to me

 

[Steve]

thatguyandrew92 said:
The triple core seems useless to me

They are far from useless, the 720 is one of the best processor buys out there. Not to mention most can activate the fourth core...

 

[ET3D]

Of course triple core may be useless for some people. Quad core or higher would also be useless for these people. I mean, if you're the type of person who feels that a netbook offers enough computing power for your use, then even dual core is useless.

I don't see any problem with triple core (I have one in my own PC). There's a space between 2 and 4 that can be filled.

 

[isamuelson]

My 720 is not useless. In fact, I was able to unlock the 4th core, so now I'm running 4 cores. In addition, I was able to overclock my CPU from 2.8 to 3.3 ghz by increasing the multiplier from X14 to X16.5. I've been running stable for over a month now and never had an issue or a crash.

X3 useless? Only for those that feel that way.

 

[Guest]

My 720 is awesome have activated the 4th core and have had it stable all the way to 3.9 best money I ever spent on a cpu