AMD Athlon-II X2-260 Regor Processor Review

In early May 2010, AMD released a new series of processors that fills in some of the gaps in their Athlon-II and Phenom-II Dual, Triple, and Quad-Core Lines. Most of the newly released processors are really just 100MHz clock speed bumps on the old versions. In this article Benchmark Reviews focuses on the newly released AMD Athlon-II X2-260 Regor AM3 ADX260OCK23GM processor. Based on the Regor core, the Athlon-II X2-260 has a 3.2GHz clock speed, up 100MHz from the Athlon-II X2-255 at 3.1Ghz which was released in January 2010. The Athlon-II X2-260 is at the very low end of the newly released processors and represents a value based market at only $76. Benchmark Reviews is going to directly compare the Athlon-II X2-260 to its predecessor to see just what advantages can be found in the new chip running 100MHz faster.

AMD is quickly moving into the leader position in the low to mid-range computing world. Their firm grasp on the sub $200 market is expanding rapidly. The lower end of their processor line, the Athlon-II line, has expanded from just X2 (dual core) CPUs last year to the X3 (triple core) and X4 (quad core) processors like the Athlon-II X4-620 which brings quad core processing to under $100. AMD is also breaching the high end of gaming PCs with their Phenom-II line. The black edition series of processors, including the Phenom-II X4-965BE which won an editor's choice award here at Benchmark Reviews, can be overclocked to extreme highs, making them great gaming CPUs. They can't beat the raw power of the i7 series, but with the 965BE coming in at only $179, the bang for the buck is appealing to computer enthusiasts everywhere.

The Athlon-II series is built to be a less expensive alternative, while still offering a lot of great features. The chips are designed without any L3 cache at all, allowing for those lower prices. Many computer enthusiasts, myself included, often wait a long time after the purchase of a computer before considering an upgrade. I know many of you reading this are the same way. According to the Steam Hardware Survey for April 2010, almost 17% of gamers (remember, the hardware survey is based on Steam users) are still using single core processors in their systems. Quad core use is up, but still only amounts to 27.5% of users. The bulk of the users use dual core processors with speeds between 2.0 and 2.6GHz. Considering the lowest end of new Athlon-II dual core processors are now at 3.2GHz, this leaves a lot of room for upgrade. Triple-core usage in processors only represents about 1% of users.

In this article, Benchmark Reviews will be focusing on testing the performance upgrade between the Athlon-II X2-260 ADX260OCK23GQ processor against its predecessor, the Athlon-II X2-255. There is relatively little difference between the two processors, besides a 100MHz increase in the clock speed. The new Athlon-II X2-260 launched at nearly the same price that the X2-255 was prior to the release. The processors pushed down the prices of the older processors, making them even more affordable. The price difference between the Athlon-II X2-260 and the X2-255 will now be about $10. We will try to discover in this article if the extra $10 is well-spent on the Athlon-II X2-260, or if it is really more advantageous to go for the less expensive version. Besides just pure performance, we will also be looking at overclocking ability to determine the value of the newly released ADX260OCK23GQ.

About Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (AMD)

"Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home, and play.

Over the course of AMD's three decades in business, silicon and software have become the steel and plastic of the worldwide digital economy. Technology companies have become global pacesetters, making technical advances at a prodigious rate - always driving the industry to deliver more and more, faster and faster.

However, "technology for technology's sake" is not the way we do business at AMD. Our history is marked by a commitment to innovation that's truly useful for customers - putting the real needs of people ahead of technical one-upmanship. AMD founder Jerry Sanders has always maintained that "customers should come first, at every stage of a company's activities. We believe our company history bears that out."

ADX260OCGMBOX Specifications

• Model Number & Core Frequency: X2 260 = 3.2GHz
• TRAY OPN# ADX260OCK23GQ
• PIB OPN# ADX260OCGMBOX
• L1 Cache Sizes: 64K of L1 instruction and 64K of L1 data cache per core (256KB total L1 per processor)
• L2 Cache Sizes: 1MB of L2 data cache per core (2MB total L2 per processor)
• Memory Controller Type: Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller *
• Memory Controller Speed: 2.0GHz with Dual Dynamic Power Management
• Types of Memory Supported: Support for unregistered DIMMs up to DDR2-1066MHz -AND- DDR3-1333MHz
• HyperTransport 3.0 Specification: One 16-bit/16-bit link @ up to 4.0GHz full duplex (2.0GHz x2)
• Total Processor-to-System Bandwidth: Up to 33.1GB/s bandwidth [Up to 17.1 GB/s total bandwidth (DDR3-1066) + 16.0GB/s (HT3)]
• Up to 28.8GB/s bandwidth [Up to 12.8 GB/s total bandwidth (DDR2-800) + 16.0GB/s (HT3)]
• Packaging: Socket AM3 938-pin organic micro pin grid array (micro-PGA)
• Fab location: GLOBALFOUNDRIES Fab 1 Module 1
• Process Technology: 45-nanometer DSL SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology
• Approximate Die Size: 117.5 mm2
• Approximate Transistor count: ~ 234 million
• Max Temp: 74 Celsius
• Core Voltage: 0.85-1.425V
• Max TDP: 65 Watts
• MSRP: $75.99

*Note: configurable for dual 64-bit channels for simultaneous read/writes

Athlon-II X2 AM3 Features

AMD Direct Connect Architecture

An award-winning technology designed to reduce bottlenecks that can exist when multiple components compete for access to the processor bus. Competing x86 systems use a single front-side bus (FSB) which must carry memory access, graphics, and I/O traffic. Eliminate the FSB, and you can reduce delays that competing access requests can cause.

45 nm Process Technology with Immersion Lithography

More efficient process technology with cutting-edge lithographic performance puts more transistors in less space.

AMD Wide Floating Point Accelerator

Doubles processor bandwidth from 64- to a full 128-Bit Floating-Point math processing pipeline that can double many of the bandwidth paths that help keep it full.

AMD Digital Media XPress 2.0 Technology

Provides support for SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4a, and MMX instructions for digital media applications and security.

CPU Architectural Features

True Multi-Core Processing

The extensive AMD64 architectural optimizations and features enable thorough integration of multiple cores within the same processor, with each core having its own L1 and L2 caches.

AMD Dedicated Multi-Cache

Each core has its own dedicated L2 cache, which enables simultaneous independent core access to L2 cache, eliminating the need for cores to arbitrate for cache access. This helps reduce latency on L2 cache accesses.

AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) Technology

Silicon feature-set enhancements designed to improve the performance, reliability, and security of both existing and future virtualization environments.

AMD PowerNow! 3.0 Technology

The latest power management technologies that deliver performance on demand when you need it, and power savings when you don't.

HyperTransport 3.0 Technology

Third-generation HyperTransportTM interface improves performance, supporting transfer speeds up to 4.4GT/s.

Simultaneous 32-bit and 64-bit Computing

AMD64 technology enables a breakthrough approach to 64-bit computing that doubles the number of registers in the processor and allows PC users to use today's 32-bit software applications while enabling them to also use the next generation of 64-bit applications.

Cool'n'Quiet 3.0 Technology

Up to eight different performance states help enhance power efficiency. Simplified performance state transitions can reduce latency and the software overhead of performance state changes.

AMD Dynamic Power Management

Each processor core, and the integrated memory controller and HyperTransportTM controller, is powered by dedicated voltage planes.

Integrated Dual-Channel Memory Controller

Directly connects the processor to memory for optimum performance, low latency, and high throughput.

Multi-Point Thermal Control

The next-generation design features multiple on-die thermal sensors with digital interface. Automatic reduction of p-state when temperature exceeds pre-defined limit. Additional memory thermal management interface.

AMD CoolCore Technology

Coarse and fine transistor control that can automatically reduce processor energy consumption by turning off unused parts of the processor.

Closer Look: Athlon-II X2-260

The Athlon-II X2-260 is based on the Regor die. Regor is a native dual core die that is 117.5 mm2 and it has a transistor count of around 234 million transistors. The die is quite a bit smaller than the Phenom-II die, Deneb. This smaller size is primarily due to the lack of L3 cache altogether. The die is built using a 45 nm process technology with AMD's Immersion Lithography, which they say allows them to put more transistors in a smaller area. The Athlon-II X2-260 also has a 65 Watt TDP (Thermal Design Power/Point). The TDP is the max amount of power dissipated by the processor under normal circumstances. It isn't the max amount of power that the processor can consume, as overclocking and other circumstances might cause the CPU to draw more power that its TDP. The 65 Watt TDP for the Athlon-II X2-255 is the same for almost all the Athlon-II X2 processors, but it is quite a bit lower than X3, X4 or Phenom lines. This means you should have less heat and power consumption to worry about under normal operating settings.

The Athlon-II X2-260 has 2MB of total L2 cache, 1MB per core. This is somewhat advantages for the dual-core Athlon-II processors, since the quad-core Athlon-II processors only have 512KB of cache per core, for the same total of 2MB. At the same time, that also means that the Athlon-II X3 triple-core processors only have 512KB of cache per core for a total L2 cache of 1.5MB. This may not seem like a lot, but you never know what that extra 512KB of cache per core can come in handy, speeding up processors that are used often.

There are some differences between the Athlon-II X2-255 and its new counterpart, the Athlon-II X2-260. The first, and most obvious, is the 100Mhz bump in speed. As noted in CPUZ, the clock speed of the Athlon-II X2-260 is 3.2GHz. Another difference here is the RAM support. The Athlon-II X2-255 has supposedly raised the compatibility with DDR2 to 1066Mhz and DDR3 to 1333Mhz, according to AMD's website. However, AMD has now announced that, due to the use of C3 silicon in the Athlon-II X2-260, the compatibility is now really at 1066MHz for DDR2 RAM and 1333MHz for DDR3 RAM.

Other than that, the X2-260 is pretty identical to the X2-255, keeping the same 200Mhz bus speed and 2000Mhz HT Link. The HT Link was bumped up by 200Mhz for the Althon-II X2 line from the Athlon X2 line. The Athlon-II X2-260 is a Socket AM3 processor, but it can be used in a Socket AM2+ motherboard as well.

The memory controller for the Athlon-II X2-260 matches the HT Link at 2000Mhz and can be configured as either one 128 bit channel or two 64 bit channels. As I mentioned before, the supported memory is listed as DDR3-1333, but just as its predecessor, the X2-255, I'm sure it will easily support the DDR3-1600 memory in our test system. Also like its predecessor, the Athlon-II X2-260 comes with full virtualization support through AMD-V technology. This will be important if you plan on using XP mode in Windows 7.

Just as in previously released upgraded versions of prior CPUs, the Athlon-II X2-260 and its predecessor are almost exactly the same. The core multiplier on the X2-260 is set at 16 rather 15.5 and since the X2-260 is not a black edition processor, the multiplier is locked. That is not to say that the two processors are equal in their capabilities, however. With the higher multiplier, the Athlon-II X2-260 may have better overclocking capabilities. Also, as is normal in the technology industry, having made these processors for quite a while now, AMD will have become more efficient in producing better yields. The current processors will be more stable than their predecessors, especially when pushing them to the limit. Simply by increasing the bus speed to 246MHz, I was able to achieve a stable overclock of the Athlon-II X2-260 to 3.9GHz, while I had to push the bus speed to 250MHz to overclock the Athlon-II X2-255 to 3.8GHz. I was able to overclock the Athlon-II X2-260 even higher using a different motherboard. I will discuss this in further detail in the Overclocking section of this review.

Testing and Results

Before I begin any benchmarking or overclocking, I thoroughly stress the CPU and memory by running Prime95 on all available cores for 12 hours. If no errors are found, I move on to a gaming stress test. To do this, I use Prime95 again to stress the processor, while running an instance of FurMark's stability test on top of this. If the computer survives this test for 2 hours without lockup or corruption, I consider it to be stable and ready for overclocking. After achieving what I feel is stable overclock, I run to these tests again for certainty. The goal of this stress testing is to ensure the clock speeds and settings are stable before performing any benchmarks. I adopted this method from another writer here at Benchmark Reviews and it seems to do a great job of flushing out what only seem to be stable overclocks.

Once the hardware is prepared, we begin our testing. Each benchmark test program begins after a system restart, and the very first result for every test will be ignored since it often only caches the test. This process proves extremely important in the many gaming benchmarks, as the first run serves to cache maps allowing subsequent tests to perform much better than the first. Each test is completed five times, with the average results displayed in our article.

For our Athlon-II X2-260 review, the following test systems and comparison processors will be used. As was mentioned before, the Athlon-II X2-260 will be directly compared to compared to its predecessor, the Athlon-II X2-255. The Athlon-II X3-445 is presented to show the next step up from the Athlon-II X2-260. The cost difference between the Athlon-II X2-260 and the X3-445 is $11, while the difference between the two X2 processors is $9. This gives us a good idea of where we should expect the performance of the respective processors to be. We have also included the results of both the Athlon-II X2-260 and the X3-445 when overclocked. An Intel i7-920 has been included in the tests to show how the Athlon-II X2-260 compares to the very high-end computing performance.

• Processor: 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 920 Bloomfield/Nehalem BX80601920 ($280)
• Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro LGA1366 Intel X58 ATX
• System Memory: Kingston 6GB (3 x 2GB) KVR1333D3K3/6GR DDR3 1333MHz (PC3 10666) (CL7-7-7-20)
• Video: MSI N285GTX-T2D1G-OC NVIDIA GTX 285 1GB
• Disk Drive 1: OCZ Agility Series OCZSSD2-1AGT30G 30GB SSD
• Disk Drive: SEAGATE Barracuda ST31500341AS 1.5TB SATA
• Optical Drive: ASUS DRW-24B1ST DVD Burner
• PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W
• Enclosure: NZXT GAMMA
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional x64

AMD Socket AM3 Test System

• Processors: AMD Athlon-II X2-255, AMD Athlon-II X2-260, AMD Athlon-II X3-445
• Motherboard: Biostar TA890GX HD
• System Memory: 2x2GB Patriot Gamer Series DDR3 (1600MHz@9-9-9-24)
• GPUs: MSI N285GTX-T2D1G-OC NVIDIA GTX 285 1GB, ATI Radeon HD4290 On-Board
• Disk Drive 1: OCZ Agility Series OCZSSD2-1AGT30G 30GB SSD
• Disk Drive: SEAGATE Barracuda ST31500341AS 1.5TB SATA
• Optical Drive: ASUS DRW-24B1ST DVD Burner
• PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W
• Enclosure: NZXT GAMMA
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional x64

Benchmark Applications

• EVEREST Ultimate Edition v5.30.1900 by Lavalys
• Passmark PerformanceTest v6.1
• PCMark Vantage v1.0.2.0 by Futurmark Corporation
• SiSoft Sandra 2010.1.16.26
• Cinebench v11.5
• Resident Evil 5 Benchmark
• Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark

EVEREST Benchmark Tests

Lavalys EVEREST is an industry leading system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. CPU, FPU and memory benchmarks are available to measure the actual system performance and compare it to previous states or other systems. Furthermore, complete software, operating system and security information makes EVEREST a comprehensive system diagnostics tool that offers a total of 100 pages of information about your PC.

All of the benchmarks used in our test bed rely on basic x86 instructions and consume very low system memory while also being aware of HyperThreading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. While the EVEREST CPU tests really only compare the processor performance more than it measures platforms, it still offers a glimpse into what kind of power each platform possesses.

Queen and Photoworxx tests are synthetic benchmarks that operate the function many times and over-exaggerate by several magnitudes what the real-world performance would be like. The Queen benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and misprediction penalties of the CPU. It does this by finding possible solutions to the classic queen problem on a chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores.

The 100MHz speed difference between the Athlon-II X2-260 and the X2-255 doesn't impress much in the Queen scores. The increase in performance is only about 3%, whereas the Athlon-II X2-260 falls significantly behind the X3-445 by about 23%. It is obvious that the extra core holds quite an advantage over the higher 100MHz clock speed. The X3-445 has a clock speed of 3.1GHz, compared to the 3.2GHz of the X2-260. Even though the increase is only about 3% from the slower Athlon-II X2-255, the X2-260 maintains about the same ratio of score/MHz. When dividing the total score by their respective clock speeds, both dual-core CPUs end up with a score of about 3.7 per MHz, meaning that the performance increase is exactly in line with the increase in clock speed.

Like the Queen benchmark, the Photoworxx tests for penalties against pipeline architecture. The synthetic Photoworxx benchmark stresses the integer arithmetic and multiplication execution units of the CPU and also the memory subsystem. Due to the fact that this test performs high memory read/write traffic, it cannot effectively scale in situations where more than two processing threads are used. The EVEREST Photoworxx benchmark performs the following tasks on a very large RGB image:

• Fill
• Flip
• Rotate90R (rotate 90 degrees CW)
• Rotate90L (rotate 90 degrees CCW)
• Random (fill the image with random colored pixels)
• RGB2BW (color to black & white conversion)
• Difference
• Crop

Photoworxx tells a story similar story to the Queen tests with the Athlon-II X2-260 showing about a 1% gain over the slower dual-core processor, but also falling behind the triple-core X3-445 by about 16%. In this case, the X2-255 has a benchmark score per MHz score of 4.8, while the faster Athlon-II X2-260 averages 4.7 per MHz. Quite honestly, a 1% difference between the two scores is really within the margin of error and we can concur that both processors scored practically the same on the Photoworxx tests, and quite a bit behind the X3-445 at only $11 more. For both tests, even the overclocked X2-260 can't quite hold up even against a stock X3-445. When overclocked also, the X3-445 takes the day as far as entry-level, inexpensive processors are concerned.

The Zip Library test measures combined CPU and memory subsystem performance through the public ZLib compression library. ZLib is designed as a free lossless data compression library for use on virtually any computer hardware and operating system. The ZLib data format is itself portable across platforms and has a footprint independent of input data that can be reduced at some cost in compression.

The two dual-core processors are again neck and neck in the ZLib test, with the X2-260 showing a 3% increase over the X2-255. When broken down to the average benchmark score per MHz again, both processors end up at about 13.3, showing that the increased performance of the Athlon-II X2-260 is in line with its increased clock speed. The real show stopper here again is the triple-core processor that only costs $11 more than the Athlon-II X2-260. It marks up gains of over 44% above the X2-260.

The AES integer benchmark measures CPU performance using AES data encryption. It utilizes Vincent Rijmen, Antoon Bosselaers and Paulo Barreto's public domain C code in ECB mode and consumes 48 MB of memory.

If anything can be said about the performance of the Athlon-II X2-260 in the Everest Benchmark tests, it would be that the processor is consistent. In the AES test we see, once again, a 3% increase in performance over the X2-255, and falls short of the triple-core X3-445 by 45%. At the very least, the X2-260 does not disappoint by proving that it is exactly what it claims to be. A 100MHz faster version of the same CPU.

Once again, the floating point tests show the same trend. The Athlon-II X2-260 increases performance by 3% in the Julia tests, 5% in the Mandel tests, and 3% in the SinJulia tests. This might show a slight increase in performance in x64 bit processing, but not much. The stock X3-445 still outperforms even the overclocked Athlon-II X2-260, lending credence to the idea that the Everest Benchmarks give a nice advantage to more cores.

Passmark Performance Test

PassMark PerformanceTest is a PC hardware benchmark utility that allows a user to quickly assess the performance of their computer and compare it to a number of standard 'baseline' computer systems. The Passmark PerformanceTest CPU tests all benchmark the mathematical operations, compression, encryption, SSE, and 3DNow! instructions of modern processors.

In our tests there were several areas of concentration for each benchmark, which are combined into one compound score. This score is referred to as the CPU Mark, and is a composite of the following tests: Integer Math, Floating Point Math, Find Prime Numbers, SSE/3DNow!, Compression, Encryption, Image Rotation, and String Sorting. For this review, we've also decided to run the memory benchmark, which results in a composite score based on the following tests: small block allocation, cached read, uncached read, write performance, and large block allocation.

The Passmark performance tests show a much different result than the Everest tests. It seems that the clock speed influences the test score a lot more than the amount of cores, where the AMD processors are concerned. The Athlon-II X2-260 not only maintains its 3% advantage over the X2-255, but in the Passmark tests, the X2-260 also outperforms the X3-445 at stock speeds. Granted, the performance increase over the X3-445 is less than 1%, and therefore within the margin of error. When overclocked, the faster clockspeed of the X3-445 at 3.9GHz outperforms the 3.6GHz X2-260 by about 9%.

The Memory marks show the same results as the CPU marks. The i7-920 was omitted from the Memory results so that the same test memory could be used in all the platforms. The Athlon-II X2-260 at stock speeds once again outperforms both of the slower clocked processors, the X2-255 and the X3-445, by about 3%. At overclocked speeds, the faster X3-445 takes the lead with its clock speed of 3.9GHz over the 3.6GHz Athlon-II X2-260. The Passmark results give us a good idea of how the X2-260 might perform under programs that only utilize a single core. The bottom line here is that it probably isn't worth the extra $11 to get the triple-core X3-445 if you aren't planning on putting that third core to use.

PCMark Vantage Benchmark Tests

PCMark Vantage is an objective hardware performance benchmark tool for PCs running 32- and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows 7. PCMark Vantage is well suited for benchmarking any type of Microsoft Windows Vista/7 PC: from multimedia home entertainment systems and laptops, to dedicated workstations and high-end gaming rigs. Benchmark Reviews has decided to use a few select tests from the suite to demonstrate simulate real-world processor usage in this article. Our tests were conducted on 64-bit Windows 7, with results displayed in the chart below.

• TV and Movies 1 (CPU=50%, RAM=2%, GPU=45%, SSD=3%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • Video transcoding: HD DVD to media server archive
  • Video playback: HD DVD w/ additional lower bitrate HD content from HDD, as downloaded from net
• TV and Movies 2 (CPU=50%, RAM=2%, GPU=45%, SSD=3%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • Video transcoding: HD DVD to media server archive
  • Video playback, HD MPEG-2: 19.39 Mbps terrestrial HDTV playback
• TV and Movies 3 (SSD=100%)
  • HDD Media Center
• TV and Movies 4 (CPU=50%, RAM=2%, GPU=45%, SSD=3%)
  • Video transcoding: media server archive to portable device
  • Video playback, HD MPEG-2: 48 Mbps Blu-ray playback

• Gaming 1 (CPU=30%, GPU=70%)
  • GPU game test
• Gaming 2 (SSD=100%)
  • HDD: game HDD
• Gaming 3 (CPU=75%, RAM=5%, SSD=20%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • CPU game test
  • Data decompression: level loading
• Gaming 4 (CPU=42%, RAM=1%, GPU=24%, SSD=33%)
  • Three simultaneous threads
  • GPU game test
  • CPU game test
  • HDD: game HDD

• Music 1 (CPU=50%, RAM=3%, GPU=13%, SSD=34%)
  • Three simultaneous threads
  • Web page rendering - w/ music shop content
  • Audio transcoding: WAV -> WMA lossless
  • HDD: Adding music to Windows Media Player
• Music 2 (CPU=100%)
  • Audio transcoding: WAV -> WMA lossless
• Music 3 (CPU=100%)
  • Audio transcoding: MP3 -> WMA
• Music 4 (CPU=50%, SSD=50%)
  • Two simultaneous threads
  • Audio transcoding: WMA -> WMA
  • HDD: Adding music to Windows Media Player

* EDITOR'S NOTE: Hopefully our readers will carefully consider how relative PCMark Vantage is as "real-world" benchmark, since many of the tests rely on unrelated hardware components. For example, per the FutureMark PCMark Vantage White Paper document, Gaming test #2 weighs the storage device for 100% of the test score. In fact, according to PCMark Vantage the video card only impacts 23% of the total gaming score, but the CPU represents 37% of the final score. As our tests in this article (and many others) has already proven, gaming performance has a lot more to do with the GPU than the CPU, and especially more than the hard drive or SSD (which is worth 38% of the final gaming performance score).

The PCMark Vantage test results show similar results as those of the Everest tests. In the TV and Movies suite, the difference between the Athlon-II X2-260 and the X2-255 is again about 3%. Overclocking the X2-260 didn't do a lot to help out, boosting performance by only about 6%. Even overclocked, the X2-260 didn't compete with the X3-445, whose stock score increased 21% over the stock X2-260. Once again, it seems that the utilization of more cores may have had an effect on the scores of the X2-260. However, it does stay inline with its 100MHz clock speed increase over the X2-255. Of course, across the board, only 50% of the weighted score in the TV and Movies tests depended on the CPU, and test 3 uses the SSD for 100% of the score.

The Gaming Suite shows a similar trend, with the number of CPUs seeming to increase the performance of the processor much more than the clock speed. The scores are really a lot closer here. The Athlon-II X2-260 improves performance over the X2-255 by 5%, and is only behind the X3-445 by 11%. As you can see, the differences when the X2-260 and the X3-445 are only marginal when the processors are overclocked. Considering the fact that the first test in the suite is measuring mainly the GPU and the second tests only measure the SSD, we can see that the CPU is much less important when it comes to the PCMark Gaming Test Suite.

The PCMark Music Suite tests not only audio transcoding, but also webpage rendering using popular web-based music store formats. In the Music tests, the difference between the Athlon-II X2-260 and the X2-255 is a mere 1%. The stock X3-445 only improves 8% over the X2-260. Also noteworthy here is the fact the overclocked X2-260 finally beats out the stock X3-445, even if only by a hair. The overclocked X3-445, however, shines in the Music test, beating out every other processor. It would appear that clock speed would have a lot to do with the scores here, rather than the number of CPUs.

SiSoftware Sandra

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what's really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

The SANDRA DhryStone and Whetstone tests are CPU tests that run completely within the CPU + cache memory itself. These tests are perfect for seeing general efficiency per processing core. Dhrystone is basically a suite of arithmetic and string manipulating programs and is an older CPU tests. Even so, it remains a simple and accurate way to show RAW CPU processing performance. The whetstone benchmark primarily measures floating-point arithmetic performance.

So far, each of our synthetic test suites have shown us the same thing. The Athlon-II X2-260 outperforms its predecessor by about 3%. Sometimes that margin raises up to 5%, but that is about the limit. While that may sound like it isn't a good thing, its really exactly what we would have expected from this processor. The extra 100MHz in the clock speed of the Athlon-II X2-260 adds up to a 3% increase in clock speed. Therefore, seeing a 3% increase in performance consistently and throughout most of the testing is exactly what we want to see. We can't be too dismayed, either, by the fact that the triple-core X3-445 processor is outperforming the dual-core by around 45% on average. Most of our benchmark tools have integrated multi-core elements into their tests, making sure that we get a good result of the actual performance value of the processors. So, as we stated earlier, if you know that you will be using mostly programs that utilize a single core or only up to two cores, the Athlon-II X2-260 will certainly be an excellent value.

Cinebench R11.5 Benchmarks

Maxon Cinebench is a real-world test suite that assesses the computer's performance capabilities. Cinebench is based on Maxon's award-winning animation software, Cinema 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. Maxon software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. Cinebench Release 11.5 includes the ability to more accurately test the industry's latest hardware, including systems with up to 64 processor threads and the testing environment better reflects the expectations of today's production demands. A more streamlined interface makes testing systems and reading results incredibly straightforward.

The Cinebench R11.5 test scenario uses all of a system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene, "No Keyframes" the viral animation by AixSponza. This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores. The OpenGL graphics card testing procedure uses a complex 3D scene depicting a car chase with which the performance of your graphics card in OpenGL mode is measured. During the benchmark tests the graphics card is evaluated by way of displaying an intricate scene that includes complex geometry, high-resolution textures, and a variety of effects to evaluate the performance across a variety of real-world scenarios.

Its readily apparent that the single core tests are right in line with the actual processer clock speed. The scores consistently reflect that. The one thing that had me a little confused with these tests was the slightly lower performance of the Athlon-II X3-445 below that of the X2-255 with the same clock speed. The reason must be the lower cache per core on the Athlon-II x3-445, but oddly enough, when I ran the same tests using the ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO motherboard, the two CPUs scored exactly the same at 0.91 on the single core test. Either way, the Cinebench single CPU test clearly shows us that the Athlon-II X2-260 is the superior CPU, most likely due to the clock speed. The X3-445, when overclocked to 3.9GHz manages to eke out a tiny win over the X2-260 at 3.6GHz.

The OpenGL tests in Cinebench force processor-first graphics computation before offloading work to the available video card. Cinebench R11.5 reveals performance results illustrated in the chart below:

I have to admit that I greatly puzzled by the results of the OpenGL tests. I can see the marked increase from both the Athlon-II X3-445 and the Athlon-II X2-260 when they are overclocked, but I'm not really sure why the Athlon-II X3-445 performs so much more poorly than both of the Athlon-II X2 processors. I had assumed originally that this was probably due to the smaller cache size, as this tests supposedly pushes as much information to the processor for rendering as it can handle before offloading to the GPU. The total L2 cache is only 512KB per core on the Athlon-II X3-445 compared to 1MB per core on both of the Athlon-II X2 processors. But this theory was kind of blown out of the water by the low performance of the i7 920 processor. I ran the tests many times more than the normal 5 times, but I consistently encountered the same result. In any event, I will have to look more deeply into the matter, especially for future reviews.

Video Game Benchmarks

PC-based video games can depend heavily on the CPU if the attached GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is less powerful, or the graphics settings are configured so low that they create no strain on the video card and must rely purely on system processing speed; a phenomenon known as CPU-dependence. The opposite is true when the video game has a powerful video card installed, and can handle all graphical demands without receiving assistance from the CPU. Benchmark Reviews has proven consistently that, with a high end GPU in use, frame rates are not often noticeably impacted by changes in processor or RAM. Since it is unlikely that someone spending enough money to buy a top-of-the-line graphics card would settle for the Athlon-II X3-445 as their gaming processor, we have decided to use Radeon HD 4290, the latest ATI on-board video solutions provided with the new 890GX motherboards for these gaming tests.

It is important to realize, however, that the Athlon-II X2 and X3 processors can be used to play modern games, and even at very high settings. The only way to do this, however, is through the purchase of a high end graphics card. While the most likely purchasers of the Athlon-II X3-445 will not be high end gamers, it is feasible that some people might want to play the latest games, but have a budget that limits them to either a high end processor, or a high end graphics card. For this reason, we have included here the results of the gaming tests with the MSI NVIDIA GTX 285 GPU. This card runs about $370. There are other cards, i.e. some of the Radeon HD 5xxx cards, that will provide enough power to play these games even with an entry level processor. In these cases, the GPU is doing most of the work for the game, and the processor is much less involved.

Built upon an advanced version of Capcom's proprietary MT Framework game engine to deliver DirectX 10 graphic detail, Resident Evil 5 offers gamers non-stop action similar to Devil May Cry 4, Lost Planet, and Dead Rising. The MT Framework is an exclusive seventh generation game engine built to be used with games developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and PC ports. MT stands for "Multi-Thread", "Meta Tools" and "Multi-Target". Games using the MT Framework are originally developed on the PC and then ported to the other two console platforms.

On the PC version of Resident Evil 5, both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 modes are available for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista Operating Systems. Microsoft Windows 7 will play Resident Evil with backwards compatible Direct3D APIs. Resident Evil 5 is branded with the NVIDIA The Way It's Meant to be Played (TWIMTBP) logo, and receives NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision functionality enhancements. NVIDIA and Capcom offer the Resident Evil 5 benchmark demo for free download from their website, and Benchmark Reviews encourages visitors to compare their own results to ours.

Regardless of processing power, with the on-board graphics, neither of these CPUs can give us playable frame rates in Resident Evil 5. The tests were completed with the lowest settings possible at the most likely low-end gaming resolution of 1280x1024. In order to play the game, you will need to invest in a discrete GPU. The Radeon HD 4290 just doesn't have what it takes to play this game.

The results from the Devil May Cry 4 tests are consistent with the Resident Evil 5 benchmark scores. Neither the Athlon-II X2-260 nor the Athlon-II X3-445 can muster enough frame rates to play the game without trouble. We are not surprised by the results of the gaming tests. While the frame rates to fluctuate generally based on what seems to be the clock speed of the CPU being used, neither of the processors can make up for the lack of power in the Radeon HD 4290. Even if you were to use the fastest Phenom-II chips available, it is doubtful that frame rates would reach decent playable levels. Again, if you were using the fastest Phenom-II CPUs, you wouldn't likely be using the on-board graphics. These graphics are meant for media playback in an HTPC or for routine everyday uses, not for gaming.

If you have kept up with Benchmark Reviews articles in the past, it will come as no surprise to you that we have continually proven that, when using a high end graphics card, CPU speed and RAM speed and timings have very little to do with a noticeable increase in Frames Per Second, even at the highest settings. In order to show that the Athlon-II X3-445 actually IS a viable processor for use in gaming, when paired with a high end video card, we have included benchmark testing of the same two games using the NVIDIA GTX 285 video card. This card will set you back close to $370, so it is unlikely that it will often be paired with an Athlon-II processor. However, if your budget allows for only one high end item, and you want to play the latest videos games, these tests clearly show that you can do so with a good video card.

And Devil May Cry 4:

Paired with the GTX285, all of the CPUs in our tests for this article can easily play both of the video games we have tested here. With the V-Sync on, the max result of the test is 60 FPS. Regardless of the CPU, all of the platforms are well within playable rates. While the Resident Evil 5 tests show some difference between the processors, the increments are very small. The Resident Evil 5 tests also show a preference for higher clock speed among the AMD CPUs, and the Athlon-II X2-260 improves performance by about 2% over both the other AMD processors.

Overclocking

Now let's get into overclocking. Since the Athlon-II X2-260 is not a black edition CPU, I couldn't increase the multiplier to overclock it. Still, while the multiplier is stopped out at x16, it is important to note that it can still be decreased down as far as x4. Because of this, it is possible to decrease the multiplier and increase the bus speed and voltage and still maintain and stable overclock. To start off, however, I wanted to see how far I could get with the overclock of the Athlon-II X3-445 by just increasing the bus speed. Using the Biostar TA890GXB-HD motherboard I started at 200MHz on the bus speed and increased by 5 until I couldn't boot into Windows. I only reached 225MHz before the Auto voltage setting didn't give me enough power to boot the system. This put the X2-260 at 3.6GHz.

3.6GHz on a 3.2GHz CPU isn't a terrible overclock. It represents a 12.5% increase in processing power, and you can see the increase in performance in the test charts. I stressed this setup using the method you will read about in the Testing section. The 3.6GHz Athlon-II X2-260 withstood the stressing like a champ. I tried getting even higher by dropping the multiplier down as far as x13.5 and increasing the bus speed above 300MHz, but I wasn't ever able to achieve a stable setting higher on the Biostar TA890GXB-HD than the 3.6GHz I had already reached. All of my overclocking was done with air cooling only using the Scythe Mugen II CPU Cooler.

I must admit that I was a little disappointed by the overclocking up to this point. I have always been able to achieve much better results from the AMD Athlon-II series processors that I have worked with. Even the Athlon-II X2-255 was able to get up to 3.8GHz. In order to make sure that I hadn't reached the full potential of the Athlon-II X2-260 at 3.6GHz, I tried again using the ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO motherboard. I had reached 3.8GHz with the X2-255 on that motherboard, and I had reached 4.1GHz with the X3-445 on that motherboard. Sure enough, I was able to achieve a much better result using the ASUS motherboard when stressing the X2-260 as well.

Using the ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO, I was able to get up to 240MHz on the bus speed without even increasing the voltage. Extra voltage is often a big problem when it comes to overclocking, since it puts a lot of extra stress on the motherboard as well as the CPU. By increasing the voltage only slightly by 0.1 volts, I was able to reach a stable overclock at 3.9GHz, as you can see in the screenshot below.

With the Athlon-II X2-260 at a stable 3.9GHz, this represented over a 22% increase in power and was much closer to the results I have achieved with the other two AMD CPUs represented in this article. And that was at only 1.49V. After reaching that 3.9GHz, I decided to push the voltage as high as I was willing to go on the M4A785TD-M EVO, since I would not be using that motherboard as the test board; to 1.6V. At 1.6V I increased the Bus Speed to 260MHz and I was able to get into Windows, but the system would inevitably crash soon after I started stressing the CPU. This had the Athlon-II X2-260 at 4.16GHz. I started taking the Bus Speed down 1MHz at a time until I finally reached a stable overclock at a 253MHz bus speed. You can see on the screenshot below that this put the processor at 4.05GHz. After 12 hours of stressing, the CPU held strong at this level. This represents a 26% increase over stock speeds.

The difference between the overclock that I was able to reach with the ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO and the Biostar TA890GXB HD is not all that unusual. Even when using two different processors of the same make and model, or two of the same motherboard, they will likely result in different abilities as far as overclocking is concerned. I had hoped that the new 890GX chipset would provide some way for me to acheive a higher overclock, but in reality, that isn't very realistic. The mechanics of overclocking have more to do with the amount of voltage I can safely send to the CPU or through the northbridge. With both of these motherboards being entry-level products, neither has MOSFET heat sinks or even that large of a heatsink on the northbridge. So overall, I am not disappointed at all by either of them. Any way you look at it, getting the Athlon-II X3-445 to overclock from a stock 3.1GHz to 3.9GHz or 4.1GHz is a good deal. I hope you will all take the time to (carefully) test your own hardware to see how far you can safely stretch it. It certainly is a lot of fun.

AMD Athlon-II X2 Final Thoughts

The launch of the Athlon-II brand marked a complete 45nm refresh of AMD's mainstream and enthusiast processors. On the high end, we have the Phenom-II X4's and X3's. Below that comes the recently launched Phenom-II X2 series, although some of these may actually be faster than the low end X3's in single-threaded applications. That leaves the Athlon-II's one notch lower, sitting directly in the mainstream market segment. These budget processors bring quad-core processing to under $100. The latest releases, just 100MHz speed bumps on the older versions of the same processors, will help fill in the gaps in the AMD processor line, providing a perfect fit for nearly any user.

Our tests have been focused on looking at the Athlon-II X2-260 as a potential purchase over the Athlon-II X2-255 at about $10 less and as an option over the X3-445 that sit at just $11 more expensive. The dual-core processor market has an established consumer base, and they are used by most gamers according to the most recent Steam Hardware Survey. The dual-core fan base is the highest on the hardware survey. Throughout our testing, we have proved very consistently that the Athlon-II X2-260 performs exactly where it should, at 3% higher than the X2-255. We have also discovered that it really can't compete with the value of the X3-445 when it comes to multi-core applications. While this doesn't come as a huge surprise, it is incumbent upon every user to weigh closely the advantages of those extra cores when considering which processors to purchase. If the majority of your programs are single or dual-core only, the X2-260 performs just as well as, or better than, the X3-445 for $11 less.

Of course, for users of entry-level processors, there isn't as large a need for multi-core usage as there is amongst enthusiast and high-end gamers who are going to opt for a quad-core processor anyway. Only the latest, most resource intensive games even utilize more than one core at this point. This is rapidly changing, and most new games coming out take advantage of extra cores, but it is still a new trend. As the trend continues, I think we will see more entry-level users opting for triple-core processors over low-end dual-coreprocessors with the price difference being so low.

With the Athlon-II X2-260 priced at only $76 dollars, it offers a great option for upgraders or individuals on a budget looking to get a new computer for basic home uses. AMD suggests using the newly released Athlon-II processors with the 890GX chipset. The new chipset really isn't all that different from the 790G chipset, in use now for quite a while. The main difference is the addition of built-in compatibility with SATA 6Gb/s. Given the extremely limited amount of hardware available that takes advantage of the new SATA standard, the compelling reasons to move to the 890GX chipset at this point are few. Look out for our upcoming reviews of new 890GX motherboards for more information on this.

That being said, after testing the Athlon-II X2-260 in both an 890GX motherboard and a 785G motherboard, I had more luck overclocking and better overall test results with the 785G. While this may be limited to only the two motherboards I used, and other 890GX motherboards might perform better, I think I can safely conclude that the benefits of upgrading to the 890GX chipset right now are not necessary. I highly recommend using the Athlon-II X2-260 in the 785G chipset. It works particularly well in the ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO motherboard. I would definitely look for a motherboard that offers the 128MB of DDR3 sideport memory if you are planning on using the onboard GPU. The Athlon-II X2-260 processor offers an excellent entry point for any budget minded user.

AMD Regor CPU Conclusion

The Athlon-II X2-260 ADX260OCK23GM performed very well against its predecessor, the Athlon-II X2-255. When overclocked to 3.6GHz the performance improved quite a bit, and even outpaced a stock X3-445 in many multi-threaded operations. When it comes to single-threaded applications, the X2-260 proves itself by outpacing the triple core X3-445 and showing measurable improved over the X2-255 as well. We proved months ago that the Athlon-II X2s can outperform similarly priced Intel Dual-Coreprocessors, and the trend continues. AMD has a vice grip on value for the low-end, entry-level processor market, and with its back to back releases of 100MHz increases, it continues to solidify that position.

The Athlon-II X2-260 withstood rigorous testing like a champ. I pushed the processor past the limits multiple times while trying to discover the best overclocking scenario in two different motherboards with two different chipsets. After literally days of stress testing to ensure stability, the processor still ran strong overclocked to 3.6GHz on one motherboard, and 4.0Ghz on another. Anyone who has ever desired to experiment with overclocking now has an entire line of very inexpensive processors to try out without spending a lot of money. All this stability is a testament to the high quality and increasingly high yield of Athlon-II processors.

AMD has made it possible for their Athlon-II line to run in AM2+ motherboards as well as AM3 motherboards. This allows the door to be wide open for the choice of motherboard with which the Athlon-II X2-260 will function. The motherboard we used to test the Athlon-II X2-260 for this article is the Biostar TA890GX HD AM3 motherboard using the 890GX chipset. We also tested the processor in the ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO AM3 motherboard using the 785G Chipset, but the results were not included in this article. The Athlon-II X2-260 functions extraodinarily well with either of these motherboards. Both boards maintain the entry-level expectations associated with the Athlon-II line and are under $100. I would expect that the X2-260 be used with a lower priced motherboard such as this in order to maintain the budget appeal of the processor. Even so, we saw conclusive evidence that the Athlon-II X2-260 paired with a budget level motherboard can still be used to play high end games if a high end GPU is used. Entry level users need not necessarily wait until they can afford all the of the highest end equipment to play the latest games. The Ahtlon-II X2-260 will play them if used in tandem with a high enough performing video card.

The Athlon-II X2-260, with its 45nm process and low TDP of 65W, is an excellent overclocker. This is common amongst Athlon-II processors, especially the higher yield ones that are being released now at faster clock speeds. The X2-260 is not a black edition processor, so we were working with a locked multiplier of x16. We could lower the multiplier through the BIOS, but not increase it. Even so, just using the bus speed and voltage, we were able to get the Athlon-II X2-260 to 3.6GHz cooled only with air using the Scythe Mugen II CPU cooler. (For more information on this cooler, check out Benchmark Review's 1st Quarter 2010 CPU Cooler Performance Review.) This represents nearly a 12.5% increase in the clock speed of the X2-260. We were able to reach a stable 4.0GHz as well when using the ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO, a 26% speed increase. A dual-core processor running at 4.0GHz is a force to be reckoned with. In fact, the entire Athlon-II line has proven to be very good at overclocking and represents a great starting point for any would-be enthusiast.

AMD's ADX260OCGMBOX retail kit is presently listed on NewEgg for $78.99, which means the Athlon-II X2-260 is priced to sell. Our price comparison tool also lists a few retailers. While enthusiasts and hard-core gamers will find that the X2-260 doesn't offer the L3 cache and the third and fourth cores that their high end games and programs need, any user working with a computer that is over a couple of years old will find that the Athlon-II X2-260 offers an amazing bang for the buck. Even without the L3 cache and additional cores offered by higher end, and therefore higher priced processors. The Athlon-II X2-260 still provides great performance for the everyday user. Expected to be priced at just $11 less than the Athlon-II X3-445, the X2-260 has proven to be worth the savings when used primarly for single and dual-thread only applications.

Pros:

Cons:

- No notable flaws

Ratings:

• Performance: 9.0
• Construction: 9.5
• Functionality: 9.5
• Overclock: 9.0
• Value: 9.25

Final Score: 9.25 out of 10.

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

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