AMD Athlon II X3 435 & Athlon II X2 240e Processors

New Dual & Triple Core Athlon II AM3 Processors:

We've seen both dual core, and more recently, quad core Athlon II processors. Today AMD is announcing triple core Athlon II processors, along with a whole slew of low-power / energy efficient dual, triple, and quad core Athlon II chips! All the "e" rated chips run a max TDP of only 45W. Today we are going to take a quick look at the Athlon II X3 435 and Athlon II X2 240e CPUs. All these processors are priced aggressively against their Intel counterpart and should lead to some stiff competition.

Athlon II X2 240e

One can assume the new Athlon II X3 processor is really a quad core with one of the cores disabled.

Athlon II X3 435

As with previous Athlon II / Phenom II releases, a BIOS update will probably be needed to ensure complete compatibility and functionality with existing AM2+ / AM3 motherboards. Most updates that support these chips have been out for a month or more. Worst case scenario if you are trying to run a newer chip on an older AM2+ board without an update is you will probably have to disable CnQ.

Pricing and Availability:

The table below lists most of AMD's newest processors according to prices I found at Newegg & AMD's Processor Pricing List. They are ordered by model number, so pay attention to the core and cache figures! The bold & shaded processors are the new models.