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Conclusion:
The Athlon II X3 450 is just as impressive as the Athlon II X2 265 processor when it comes down to the price per performance. We have seen in this review that an additional core does make a difference in several benchmarks and can come in handy with multitasking in Windows. At a price tag of ten dollars more than the Athlon II X2 265 one would think “I can find an extra $10 somewhere.” In order to keep the field level for benchmarking of the Athlon II X3 450, Athlon II X2 265 and the Phenom II X2 560 BE, we tested all three processors on the same machine in order to show the results for each processor delivered in the same environment running the same tests.
The Phenom II X2 560 BE has its advantages when is comes to over clocking the processor to higher clock speeds than the Athlon II X3 450 and the Athlon II X2 265 and when done so it took the lead with higher scores across the board. The draw backs being the price tag of the Phenom II over that of the Athlon II X3 450 and the X2 265. This of course fits in to AMD’s target audience for the Phenom II and the Athlon II as the Phenom is targeted towards over clock enthusiast and increased performance with speed while the Athlon II finds a better home among budget consumers, integrators, and small businesses looking to get more for their money without the need to overclock their processors.
The Athlon II X3 450 was also tested while playing DIRT2 just like the Athlon II X2 265 the game play was very smooth. So if your looking to put together a gaming rig on a tight budget and don’t want to deal with overclocking to squeeze out a little more performance than I would recommend the Athlon II X3 450 with the additional core over the Athlon II X2 265 with a price tag of $86 for the triple core and $76 for the dual core, you simply can’t get better performance for the same cost.
If game play is your aim then the Athlon II X3 450 is an excellent buy combining an additional core with a low pricetag. It should be noted that game performance is more heavily dependent upon your video card than your processor but Windows will definitely appreciate the additional CPU as will you while doing CPU intensive tasks.
I’ve been reading alot of articles on the Athlon II 450 X3 Rana 45nm Technology which I have in my computer. Most of them say you can unlock the 4th core and get advantages of more speed. I am running 8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 669MHz, with a BIOSTAR Group N68S3+ (CPU 1) motherboard and 256MB GeForce 8400 GS (XFX Pine Group) video card and Creative xfi sound card. Do you think its a good idea to re-set my CPU configeration to “auto” and unlock the forth core?
I would appreciate your advise, I’m leary of others I have read.
There is a lot of talk about this and from what I know, it is not as simple as a BIOS change. In the manufacturing process AMD has disabled a core on the die of the processor itself. There is talk (if you permit the expression of “around the water cooler)” that some people have used a single strand of wire to connect the core or that they used a pencil eraser to enable this physical disconnection. Honestly, until I see this first hand, I won’t believe it till I see it myself. I would chalk this talk of changing a BIOS or using a wire to jumper the core as none sense. The physical disconnect of a single core on the processor die is a fraction of a nanometer. No one with a home soldering kit would not be able to reconnect this disabled core or use a BIOS change to enable it.
Hi,
Your motherboard does not support core unlocking.
This one is cheap and does support core unlocking http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-M5A78L-M-Motherboard-Socket-Unlocker/dp/B004ZOH1I6/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pdT1_S_nC?ie=UTF8&coliid=I7CHDHJ2OAHEA&colid=269MO0OHK392Y
Hi there, my name is Kristeen Depriest and I have to point out that AMD Athlon II X3 450 Reviewed | TechwareLabs is really a remarkable piece of writing.
i unlocked the 4th core and got a windows 7 score of 7.3 from previous 6.9 with 3 cores.