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
Final Words
The performance of the Athlon X2 BE-23xx lineup isn't particularly impressive, but that is to be expected. Power consumption is definitely down over the standard 65nm 65W Athlon 64 X2s, but not as low as the old 35W EE SFF parts were. A direct comparison to the Core 2 Duo E4300 is difficult given that we are forced to use different chipsets/motherboards, but for a high performance system you can easily build a comparably low power system out of Intel parts. AMD argues that with integrated graphics you can deliver a lower overall TDP on one of its systems, which we tend to believe given that the P965 is one of the lowest power Intel chipsets you can buy whereas the nForce 590 SLI that's a part of our normal AMD test bed is far from the lowest power offering out there. We will be looking at integrated graphics/platform performance in a future CPU article when we will address this topic in greater detail.
If you're simply looking for a high performance system with lower power requirements, possibly just to keep your office/room cooler and quieter, then the Core 2 Duo E4300 is still a better bet than either of these new X2s. You will pay about $25 more, but the increase in performance is more than tangible (not to mention the fact that you can actually get close to top of the line performance if you decide to overclock the E4300).
However, if performance isn't a primary concern and you're not interested in overclocking (our BE-2350 wouldn't even break 2.4GHz), then these chips offer an interesting alternative to current 65W X2s. The only issue is that you have to be committed to AMD's Socket-AM2 platform, which at this point we're not sure will give you a good upgrade path in the future (depending on how successful Phenom ends up being).
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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.