Final thoughts and rating
AMD's release of the Athlon II X4 620 and 630 brings quad-core processing to budgets that previously would have been swallowed by decent dual-core chips.Starting off at around £75 for the 2.6GHz-clocked '620, performance is partially castrated by the removal of 6MB of L3 cache when compared with full-fat Phenom II X4s.
The lack of on-chip L3 cache, however, makes the chips significantly cheaper to produce for AMD, evinced by the projected street price, yet performance is still comparatively strong when evaluated over a broad range of benchmarks and compared against the more-expensive Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200.
Indeed, hook the quad-core Athlons up to a well-featured 780G/785G motherboard, throw in 4GB of quality memory and one should receive a fistful of change from £200.
Some may argue, with some justification, that a higher-clocked dual-core part would be a better bet - an Intel Core 2 Duo E8xxx or AMD Phenom II X2 550, for example. We'd always opt for more cores given a choice, simply because you can add clock-speed by better cooling and overclocking, but enabling 'additional' execution cores is a rarity - X3 to X4, for example.
Given an ideal world we'd like a lower TDP - 65W or so - and an unlocked multiplier for the enthusiast to tinker with. Other than that, there's little to criticise here once price is factored in.
What AMD has done is bring significant parallel processing within the reach of a larger percentage of the computer-buying population. That's a good thing for both the company and the industry, and we're eager to see how Intel will respond. A dual-core chip with integrated graphics is in the pipeline, known as Clarkdale, but, for now, the Athlon II X4 620 and 785G chipset combination is hard to ignore as a base for a (relatively) budget Windows 7 PC build.
HEXUS Rating
We consider any product score above '50%' as a safe buy. The higher the score, the higher the recommendation from HEXUS to buy. Simple, straightforward buying advice.
The rating is given in relation to the category the component competes in, therefore the CPU is evaluated with respect to our 'mid-range components' criteria, where value plays a larger part in the overall score.
AMD Athlon II X4 620 (at £75)
HEXUS Awards
Solid performance and an attractive etail price garner the chip the good value award.
AMD Athlon II X4 620 (at £75)
HEXUS Where2Buy
The AMD Athlon II X4 920 can be purchased from SCAN.co.uk* at a cost of £76.18.
*As always, UK-based HEXUS.community discussion forum members will benefit from the SCAN2HEXUS Free Shipping initiative, which will save you a further few pounds plus also top-notch, priority customer service and technical support backed up by the SCANcare@HEXUS forum.
HEXUS Right2Reply
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