What you'll notice with the new Athlon II X3 processors is that the architecture (based of the X4 Propus core) shows a lot of similarities to Phenom II, and of course that was the building block for this new, somewhat cheaper design of processor. The biggest change is that 6MB Level 3 cache being cut away, giving the Phenom II its extra bite.

But let's walk through the Athlon II X3 architecture for a moment. Recently AMD made a move to their 45nm node to manufacture the newer model processors. Much like Phenom II, the Rana core that makes the Athlon II X3 is now based on a 45nm node. If you look at this from a distance it pretty much means that they were able to make this processor smaller compared to the last generation products. The die-size of this processor is measuring 169 mm˛.

A smaller fab size means advantages, often to be found in lower voltages and higher clock frequencies. The fastest Athlon II X3, the 435, will run at 2.9 GHz at a full 2.0 GHz HT 3.0 speed. It is the processor we are testing today, the Athlon II X4 435 which is running at a 2900 MHz clock frequency (14.5 x 200 MHz). Voltage ranges are 0.925 to 1.425V. This processor generation has a slightly increased maximum peak wattage of 95 Watts (TDP). Being an AM3 package, the processor is both motherboard Socket AM2+ and AM3 compatible.

The big difference
This Athlon II X4 parts are based on AMD's 45nm Silicon on Insulator process technology and has a total of 2MB L2 cache; 512KB per core for the X4 and 1.5 MB L2 cache for the Athlon II X3 processors.

As stated, a big change in Phenom II architecture was a large increase in L3 cache. Phenom II can address 6MB L3 cache shared among the cores as a buffer, so it can exchange data in-between the four logical cores. And it's exactly that part that has been stripped away from the Athlon II X4 and X3.

• L1 Cache (Instruction + Data): 128KB x3 (64KB + 64KB for each core)
• L2 Cache: 512KB x3 (triple-core)
• L3 Cache: 6MB Shared L3

L3 is where a lot of magic happens and is the reason for Phenom II's success. How much of an effect will this have on overall performance? Well, quite a bit really but that's what we'll find out in our benchmark session.

AMD Athlon II X3 die - similar to the Athlon II X4