AMD's Phenom X3 8000 Series: Two Cores vs Three Cores

AMD's Phenom X3 8000

AMD has been pretty active on the CPU front lately, last month we saw the Phenom re-launch with the B3-stepping 50-series quad-core processors and today AMD is unveiling its 50-series triple-core parts.

	Cores	Stepping	Clock Speed	TDP	L2 Cache	L3 Cache	1 Ku Price
AMD Phenom X4 9850	4	B3	2.5GHz	125W	2MB	2MB	$235
AMD Phenom X4 9750	4	B3	2.4GHz	125W	2MB	2MB	$215
AMD Phenom X4 9550	4	B3	2.2GHz	95W	2MB	2MB	$209
AMD Phenom X3 8750	3	B3	2.4GHz	95W	1.5MB	2MB	$195
AMD Phenom X3 8650	3	B3	2.3GHz	95W	1.5MB	2MB	$165
AMD Phenom X3 8450	3	B3	2.1GHz	95W	1.5MB	2MB	$145

Note that all three of the triple-core parts are 50-series CPUs, meaning they are based on the B3 stepping and do not suffer from the TLB erratum that plagued the early Phenom processors. AMD continues to ship B2 stepping CPUs, but most of them are to OEMs that aren't as concerned with the performance hit associated with the software TLB fix.

Pricing is also pretty interesting, as the top end Phenom X3 8750 is only $20 cheaper than the quad-core Phenom X4 9750 despite running at the same clock speed. The X3 8650 and 8450 are far more interesting as both of them are priced closer to $150.

There's now some overlap between AMD's triple-core Phenom and dual-core Athlon X2 offerings in terms of price, have a look:

	Cores	Clock Speed	TDP	L2 Cache	L3 Cache	1 Ku Price
AMD Phenom X3 8750	3	2.4GHz	95W	1.5MB	2MB	$195
AMD Phenom X3 8650	3	2.3GHz	95W	1.5MB	2MB	$165
AMD Phenom X3 8450	3	2.1GHz	95W	1.5MB	2MB	$145
AMD Athlon X2 6400+	2	3.2GHz	125W	2MB	0MB	$178
AMD Athlon X2 6000+	2	3.0GHz	125W	2MB	0MB	$167
AMD Athlon X2 5600+	2	2.8GHz	89W	2MB	0MB	$146

The Athlon X2s still hold a tremendous clock speed advantage, but Phenom can do more work per clock. It will be interesting to see if three Phenom cores at 2.1GHz are a better buy than two Athlon X2 cores at 2.8GHz.

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