The $100 AMD Athlon II X4 620 has been powering our Budget Hardware Leaderboard system for over a month now, offering the benefits of a quad core processor to the lower end of systems and if you are willing to overclock it you can also get 3GHz+ of speed.  Josh reviewed this chip back in September but it is worth revisiting just how this chip fits into budget computing.  Watch it annihilate a Q9400 and also get a look at the new Sapphire PURE 785G AM3 motherboard at Bjorn3D.  A great processor for very little price.

“Although they were released about a month ago, the new budget-councious quad-core processors from AMD are still fresh in the minds of many enthusiasts. The Athlon II X4 620 and 630 have made huge waves recently due to the fact that it is now possible to obtain a quad-core CPU for under $100. Pair this processor up with an AM3 motherboard running a 785G chipset and set of DDR3 RAM, and you will have your hands on a value-minded, mainstream performing rig.

Clocking in at 2.6GHz, the Athlon II X4 620 being reviewed today is very similar to the K10 architecture of the Phenom and Phenom II, but it lacks the L3 cache that is found on the Phenoms. L1 cache clocks in at a respectable 512KB and 2MB are provided for L2 cache. These numbers are very close to processors up the ladder and the lack of L3 is one of the factors keeping the cost of this processor so low.

To take advantage of this new CPU, we called upon the Sapphire PURE 785G AM3 motherboard. This motherboard was built for the new Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs and features a built-in HD4200 GPU for integrated graphics duties.”

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