AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350: Mainstream X2s with 45W TDP
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 5, 2007 4:09 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Test
Note that SYSMark 2007 only runs on 32-bit versions of Windows, so all of the tests for this article were conducted under Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit.
| CPU: | AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0GHz/512KBx2) AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 (2.1GHz/512KBx2) AMD Athlon X2 BE-2300 (1.9GHz/512KBx2) Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 (1.86GHz/4MB) Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 (1.80GHz/2MB) |
| Motherboard: | ASUS P5B Deluxe (P965) ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe (nForce 590 SLI) |
| Chipset: | Intel P965 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 8.1.1.1010 (Intel) Integrated Vista Drivers (NVIDIA) |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.9 300GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Card: | NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA ForceWare 158.18 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1600 x 1200 |
| OS: | Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit |
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
Intel won't send us any of the lower end E series chips, but from my search it doesn't look like the E2160 is actually much of a value, it's barely cheaper than the cheapest E4300 and far more difficult to find at this point. All of this should hopefully change as availability increases, but for now the E4300 is the better buy.Take care,
Anand
Omega215D - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
Newegg has them in stock along with the lower 2140. IMO I don't see any reason to buy them since they are only $20 - 30 less but have only 1MB cache while the E4300 has 2MB. I'm also pretty sure that when you overclock both of them the E4300 will definitely come out ahead.While I'm here, I currently have a Socket 939 PCIe mobo with a A64 3000 in there. I was thinking of upgrading to an Athlon 64 X2 3800 ($83) along with another 1GB of HyperX RAM ($91). With the upcoming processors from both teams coming out and DDR3 should do the upgrade listed above, upgrade to a Core 2 Duo for now or just wait for the next gen stuff?
Calin - Wednesday, June 6, 2007 - link
DDR3 won't come down fast in price - but for now, DDR2 is cheaper and faster than DDR.Depends on how much money you want to pay - for $200, a new processor and extra RAM would be the solution. If you want to pay more, and can get some money from the old configuration, maybe a cheap Core2Duo, overclocked, would be the better solution.
I don't know what price drops are in the future, but maybe a slow, 4MB cache Core2Duo (E6320) would be the best solution - depends on available supply
SilthDraeth - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
You show the new BE processor using more power than the x2 5000+ at idle.Should it be the other way around?
defter - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
Yes, but because of lower voltage and not because of lower nominal clockspeed.Many people forget that when Cool&quiet is enabled, K8 CPUs will decrease their clockspeed to 1GHz. Thus, it doesn't matter much wherever the original speed was 3GHz or 2GHz, in both cases CPUs will be running at 1GHz while idling.
SilthDraeth - Tuesday, June 5, 2007 - link
I understand that, but it was my understanding that the BE is running at a lower voltage than the 5000+. The older EE 35W is the lowest for AMD out of the three reviewed.