AMD Athlon X2 7850 BE review - Introduction

Hmm, let's see ... it was half way through December when AMD released a very budget conscience dual-core processor that offered nice performance. It was the Series 7000 dual-core processors.

So that was four months ago when these puppies where released:

• AMD Athlon X2 7750 BE 2.7 GHz (Black Edition)
• AMD Athlon X2 7750 2.7 GHz
• AMD Athlon X2 7550 2.5 GHz

Today AMD is adding another processor to this line-up, in specific the AMD Athlon X2 7850 BE 2.8 GHz (Black Edition) and here at Guru3D.com we will take a look at it.

Dual-core processors, gents. While I feel that the world should just move on towards quad-core processors myself, I also am faced with the reality that of course not everyone can afford them. An entry level quad core processor typically start at 175 USD. And the one thing that we keep forgetting is that real value is still to be found in dual-core processors. The reality is that with normal everyday usage and gaming, a dual-core processor is really all you need. Compared to quad core, you will not get the maximum out of them, but definitely the majority of bang for you buck.

So AMD figured, what if you take a last generation Phenom X4 processor, shop it in half and release it? That is the what the Kuma architecture really is. AMD developed a new dual-core processor based on B3 revision/stepping, under codename KUMA. Much like the 7750 quite frankly .. it's a really interesting product.  AMD is manufacturing these CPUs with 65nm process technology, and this model will have a 95W thermal envelope.

A really okay performing dual-core processor for 79 USD/EUR, you get to have quite a nice product with fairly good clock-frequencies, your gaming experience will be quite good as well. That's value.

So today we test the Athlon X2 7850, the CPU has a respective clock speed 2.8GHz, a processor with 3MB of total cache, 512KB of the L2 variety per core and 2MB of shared L3 cache per chip developed under ASIC name KUMA.

And yeah, I'm still mystified why this processor series was not labeled Phenom X2 :)

We today will have a closer look at the Athlon X2 7850 BE and see if dual-core is still an interesting option for this audience. To top it off, this processor will also be a Black Edition chip which overclockers should like very much. Next page please ...