AMD Athlon II X4 640 3.0GHz Quad Core Processor Review

The AMD Athlon II X4 640 CPU

The AMD Athlon II X4 640 is the latest and greatest quad-core Athlon II processor to be released. The AMD Athlon II X4 640 comes priced at a low price of $122.00 plus shipping. Based on the ‘Propus’ CPU die, the Athlon II X4 640 has a clock speed of 3.0GHz with a 2000MHz HT link and memory support for both DDR2 and DDR3. The chip’s overall clock frequency is just 100MHz faster than the AMD Athlon II X4 635, which costs $105.99. For an extra ~$16 you get another 100MHz speed bump, which might make some of you yawn, but for those who don’t like to overclock and are building a new system every last megahertz can help. The new AMD Athlon II X4 640 is also based on the new C3 CPU stepping, so it features the latest CPU optimizations and errata fixes. Both the AMD Athlon II X4 635 and 640 processors are great quad-core CPUs that are ideal for someone looking for the multi-threaded performance that only a quad-core processor can offer.

Taking a look at the CPUz Screen shot above we can see the specs of the AMD Athlon II X4 640 Quad Core Processor. The system utilizes a 200MHz bus speed, which requires a x15 multiplier to achieve the final processor speed of 3.0GHz. The Athlon II X4 640 has a total L2 cache of 2MB which it shares in common with the Phenom II processors, but is lacking the L3 cache of that the Phenom II’s possess. Unfortunately, the AMD Athlon II X4 640 is not a Black Edition Processor, so to achieve any overclocking we will have to raise the FSB; we will play with that later in the article, though. The Athlon II X4 640 has a rating of 95W TDP.

The Athlon II series is on the lower end of AMD’s price spectrum. AMD is able to keep the price down on the Athlon II series for several reasons. The lack of any L3 Cache on the Propus Die is one of the reasons the Athlon II’s can maintain the low price point. The smaller die of Propus means that it will be less expensive to manufacture and allows AMD to hit aggressive price points for quad core processors. Built from the ground up the Propus Die measures 169mm and is manufactured by GLOBALFOUNDARIES at Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany using the 45nm DSL SOI (silicon-on-insulator) process that all the other higher-end Phenom II processors use.

AMD is also releasing five other processors in addition to the Athlon II X4 640 today!

• Athlon II X3 445 which is a triple core, 95W TDP, 3.1GHz processor for only $87.00
• Athlon II X2 260 which is a Dual Core, 65W TDP, 3.2GHz processor for only $76.00

Also coming to the line are few energy efficient Athlon II’s!

• Athlon II X4 610e which is a Quad Core, 45W TDP, 2.4GHz processor for only $143.00
• Athlon II X3 415e which is a Triple Core, 45W TDP, 2.5 GHZ processor for only $102.00
• Athlon II X2 245e which is a dual Core, 45W TDP, 2.9 GHZ processor for only $77.00

With the introduction of the AMD Six Core Processors just a few weeks ago, and the five new Athlon II’s this rounds out AMD’s updated offerings for desktop computing. Legit Reviews will be putting these processors through the battery of tests in the up and coming weeks. For now though, lets take a look at how the new AMD Athlon II X4 640 Quad Core performs!