AMD Phenom II X2 555 and Athlon II X4 635 Performance

Performance Summary: The new Athlon II X4 635 and Phenom II X2 555 performed well, especially considering their affordable price points. In general, both of the processors were outpaced by Intel's latest dual-core Core i5 661, but please keep in mind AMD's new offerings are significantly less expensive. In single-threaded tasks, the higher frequency of the Phenom II X2 555 gives it an edge over the Athlon II X4 635, but the Athlon II X4 635 additional two execution cores help it out significantly in multi-threaded workloads, where it comes out on top.

Today's launch by AMD doesn't break any major new ground, but the products do represent better values than the previous offerings they're replacing at the top of their respective product line-ups, which is a good thing for consumers.

AMD Athlon II and Phenom II Processors

The $119 Athlon II X4 635 becomes the fastest quad-core in the Athlon II line-up, and it does so at a price that's actually few dollars lower than the Athlon II X4 630, which was $122 at launch. We should also note that the release of the X4 635 pushes the X4 630 down to the $99 price point, making it one heck of a value.

As we've mentioned, the Phenom II X2 555 has the distinction of being the fastest dual-core processor to ever come out of AMD. And it too is quite affordable, thanks to a sub-$100 price point. The Phenom II X2 555 also turned out to be power friendly, putting up some of the lower power consumption numbers we have seen to date. In light of today's fast quad-core processors, the Phenom II X2 555 isn't going to break any benchmark records, but at under a 100 bucks it's certainly a powerful chip worth considering if you're looking to build a speedy system on shoestring budget.