AMD Athlon II – 610e X4

Introduction

During the eras of the G5 processors and the P4’s the goal of innovations has been mainly enhancements and improvements in speed and performance of the processors regardless of the cost. Since the dawn of the Core 2’s, however, the goals have been ever so slowly shifting towards savings and efficiency rather than performance in the processor world. Though I mentioned Core 2’s started the shift towards the efficiency of the processors, they are definitely not the only ones in the race. Today we review a processor not from Intel, but from their competitors – AMD. How will one of their newest energy efficient processors, the 610e, stack up against its competition? Read on and find out.

Specifications

Specifications are encouraging. You are looking at an AM3 Athlon 2 processor which features a stock speed of 2.4 GHz that operates at 45 W (Comparable 45 nm i5 processor operates at 82W).

General Info
Type	CPU / Microprocessor
Family	AMD Athlon II X4
Model number	610e
Frequency (MHz)	2400
Bus speed (MHz)	667 MHz Memory controller One 2000 MHz 16-bit HyperTransport link
Package	938-pin organic micro-PGA
Sockets	Socket AM2+ Socket AM3
Architecture / Microarchitecture
Processor core	Propus
Core stepping	C3
Manufacturing process	0.045 micron
Die size	169 mm2
Data width	64 bit
Number of cores	4
Floating Point Unit	Integrated
Level 1 cache size	4 x 64 KB instruction caches 4 x 64 KB data caches
Level 2 cache size	4 x 512 KB caches
Features	MMX 3DNow! SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSE4a Advanced Bit Manipulation AMD64 technology AMD-V (virtualization) technology Enhanced Virus Protection
Low power features	Cool’n’Quiet 3.0 CoolCore Technology Dual Dynamic Power Management Core C1 and C1E states Package S0, S1, S3, S4 and S5 states
On-chip peripherals	Integrated 144-bit DDR2/DDR3 Memory Controller HyperTransport 3 technology
Electrical/Thermal parameters
V core (V)	0.775 – 1.25
Maximum operating temperature (°C)	72
Thermal Design Power (W)	45

CPU-Z

Above you can find the details for the processor obtained with the information tool: CPU-Z. On the left you will find the speed of the processor at stock setting equaling 2.4 GHz. On the right you will find overclocked speed of 2.64 GHz both achieved at stock processor voltage with modification of the core speed from 200 MHz to 220 MHz. All other settings we left intact.

Phenom II X4 810	2.4 GHz (Stock Speed)	2.640 GHz 10% Overclock

Testing Platform

• Motherboard: Jetway JNC84-LF
• Chassis: Chenboro ES36069 Mini-ITX Home Server/NAS Chassis with integrated power supply.
• Memory: OCZ 5400 2 GB
• Hard Drive: Patriot Warp 32 GB SSD
• Comparison Processor: Phenom II X4 810

Phenom II 810 X4 will be used as a comparison to the 610e. The processor was run at its default speed of 2.6 GHz at 95W – a little more than double than that of the 610e.

PCMark Vantage

If the engine of a car is essentially its heart, the processor can also be referred to as the heart of a computer system. As such, the processor influences almost every aspect of that systems performance. This can be seen by the category scores in pictures below. A slight increase in clock speed translates into a signficat gain in almost any category. A good exmaple of tha can be seen in the music suite which jumped to 5000s range form the 2700s – almost a two fold increase. To put things slight more into perspective, the AMD 810 obtained ??? in the same test.

Phenom II X4 810	2.4 GHz (Stock Speed)	2.640 GHz 10% Overclock

SiSoft Sandra

Multi-Media

The Processor Multi-Media benchmark of the SiSoft Sandra suite was designed measure the processors’ ability to render pixels. The higher the score the better is that processor’s ability to render pixels. The results were rather surprising. The 610e at 2.640 with 10 % overclock scored slightly above the 810. The performance at standard clock speed was also in the same range of 0.61 MPixels/MPixels, however, was slightly lower than of the overclocked version and the 810. Interestingly enough, these processors also outscore the Intel i5 processors.

Phenom II X4 810	2.4 GHz (Stock Speed)	2.640 GHz 10% Overclock

Multi-Core Efficiency

The Multi-Core efficiency benchmark was designed to test out the efficiency of the communication pathways between the cores of a multi-core processor. This is represented by GB/s. Higher number translates into larger bandwidth between the processor cores. In this case the bandwidth between the cores of the 810 measured out to be 4.17 GB/s while the bandwidth of the 610e was at 2.72 GB/s. Overclocking increased that number by 0.28 but the 610e still fell short of the 810.

Phenom II X4 810	2.4 GHz (Stock Speed)	2.640 GHz 10% Overclock

Arithmetic

Arithmetic benchmark of the suite is meant to measure the amount of operations the processor is capable of executing per second. The scores for this benchmark were 0.74 GFLOPS/GIPS for both stock and overclock speeds. As illustrated in the pictures below, the 610e outperforms the Core i5 670, however, falls short of the Core i5 750.

Phenom II X4 810	2.4 GHz (Stock Speed)	2.640 GHz 10% Overclock

Cryptography

The term cryptography is most commonly used with security aspects of operating system. When one needs to send a message across an open channel with listeners other than the intended listener, the message has to be encrypted so that only the intended user with the correct decryption metho will be able to access the message. Most practical applications have to deal with confidential content and will not impact most home users unless the have encrypted hard drives. The results for this particular benchmark were 394 MB/s in AES256 at 2.64 GHz and 358 MB/s at 2.4 GHz.

2.4 GHz (Stock Speed)	2.640 GHz 10% Overclock

Passmark 7.0

Passmark is another benchmark similar in nature to SiSoft Sandra. In a sense both benchmarks are synthetic and provide only relative results in terms of MIPS and GIPS. These results can only be relevant when compared to other machines. In this case, the overclock increase contributed to an approximate at 13% performance gain in the overall score of the processor – 3300s range at overclocked speeds as compared to 2900s range at stock speeds. Furthermore the processor performed extremely well when compared to the 810 with the similar score in the 3300’s range.

Phenom II X4 810	2.4 GHz (Stock Speed)	2.640 GHz 10% Overclock

WinRAR Benchmark

The popular compression program’s benchmark reported compression speeds of 1.288 MB/s at stock speed of the processor and 1.430 MB/s at 2.64 GHz. It is important to note that the benchmark is based on the compression of the files rather than extraction Both tests were run with multi-threading option enabled to take full advantage of the multiple cores of the processor.

2.4 GHz (Stock Speed)	2.640 GHz 10% Overcloc

Conclusion

Overall AMD’s 610e X4 delivered exceptional results despite the fact that the processor was built mostly with power consumption and efficiency in mind. In most cases the 610e (when overclocked 10%) outperformed its older brother, the 810 X4. In a couple of cases, the 610e was able to even match up to the Core i5 processors. When compared to the 810 and Core i5, the 610e raises another good point. The selling price that AMD has listed for the processor is $143 which is $50 cheaper than the Core i5s and about the same price as the 810. Make something better, cheaper and more efficient translates to innovation and this processor is a textbook definition of that. By consuming half the power of the larger processors while still having the ability to play in the same ballpark definitely earns this processor my recommendation.