Total System Stressed Power Draw - All Cores/Threads
Processor	Total System Power Draw (All Cores)
Intel Pentium 4 540	223 Watts
Intel Pentium D 840 (2 Core )	240 Watts
Intel Pentium D 940 (2 Core Load)	253 Watts
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2 Core Load)	156 Watts
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 (2 Core Load)	163 Watts
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (2 Core Load)	158 Watts
Intel Core i5 750 (4 Core Load)	169 Watts
Intel Core i7 920 (8 Thread Load)	213 Watts
AMD Sempron 3600+	148 Watts
AMD Athlon64 4000+	172 Watts
AMD Athlon64 FX-60 (2 Core Load)	196 Watts
AMD Athlon64 X2 4800+ (2 Core Load)	173 Watts
AMD Athlon64 X2 5000+ (2 Core Load)	207 Watts
AMD Athlon64 FX-62 (2 Core Load)	235 Watts
AMD Athlon II X2 240e (2 Core Load)	153 Watts
AMD Athlon II X2 250 (2 Core Load)	163 Watts
AMD Athlon II X3 435 (3 Core Load)	183 Watts
AMD Athlon II X4 620 (4 Core Load)	195 Watts
AMD Athlon II X4 635 (1 Core Load)	151 Watts
AMD Athlon II X4 635 (2 Core Load)	170 Watts
AMD Athlon II X4 635 (3 Core Load)	189 Watts
AMD Athlon II X4 635 (4 Core Load)	211Watts
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition (4 Core Load)	181 Watts
AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition (2 Core Load)	187 Watts
AMD Phenom II X3 720 (3 Core Load)	213 Watts
AMD Phenom II X4 910e (4 Core Load)	176 Watts
AMD Phenom II X4 955 (4 Core Load)	236 Watts
AMD Phenom II X4 965 - 125W TDP (4 Core Load)	243 Watts
AMD Phenom II X4 965 - 140W TDP (4 Core Load)	264 Watts

Under load the power draw of the Athlon II X4 635 PC increases to 211Watts with all four cores under stress. Compared to the considerably faster Core i5 750 processor (169Watts), the Athlon II X4 635 PC system partakes in positively porcine power draw. AMD really needs to move its Athlon II processors to 32nm, but don't expect to see that until at least the second quarter of this year.

Next up, PCSTATS overclocks the Athlon II X4 635 chip to 3.6GHz and beyond, then it's on to the benchmarks.

AMD AII X4 635 CPU Overclocking Report:

Overclocking Results:

stock max. oc processor speed: 2.9 ghz 3.625 ghz multiplier / bus speed: 14.5x 200mhz 14.5x 250mhz if you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers: Overclocking the CPU and Memory Overclocking the Videocard

AMD's mainstream quad-core chip, the 2.9GHz Athlon II X4 635 processor retails for just under $120 (2.9GHz / 95W max TDP / 4 cores), so it's a pretty good value on the whole. Given that Athlon II processors lack any L3 cache, a bit of overclocking can do wonders to speed things up a bit.

Before we began our overclocking adventures, the Corsair XMS3-1600C9 memory used in PCSTATS' test system was configured to run in DDR3-800 MHz mode (from DDR3-1066) so it wouldn't hold the CPU back. The Athlon II X4 635 chip was then ready to be overclocked by increasing the bus speed, since its multiplier is locked by AMD. In the past PCSTATS has seen mixed results from the Athlon II chips, but will today be different?

With the socket AM3 processor locked and loaded into Gigabyte's GA-MA790FXT-UD5P motherboard, we set about overclocking the bus speed from 200MHz to 215MHz... then 225MHz... 240MHz and finally 250MHz. That change in bus speed overclocked the 2.9GHz Athlon II X4 635 to a healthy 3.625GHz with no fuss, no muss. However, going beyond 250MHz bus wasn't at all easy; we tried 260MHz only to be greeted with a BSOD upon boot.

After some fiddling, the maximum overclocking result is a fairly conservative 250MHz bus, or 3.625GHz. Not the best result we've ever seen, but not too bad either.

For this review PCSTATS is running the benchmark suite in both Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems. Hopefully this will help you make an informed decision in the coming months as Windows 7 adoption firms up. For the most part, benchmark results are not significantly different between the two operating systems, although certain tests do see advantages under Win 7.

Prelude to Benchmarks

For this review PCSTATS is running the benchmark suite in both Microsoft Windows Vista and Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems. For the most part, benchmark results are not significantly different between the two operating systems, although certain tests do see advantages under Windows 7.

Over the following page we'll be running AMD's 2.9GHz quad-core AMD Athlon II X4 635 processor though PCSTATS standard set of gaming, productivity, and multi-threaded processor benchmarks. There are a wide variety of gaming and synthetic benchmarks here to illustrate what kind of performance boost users can expect from the latest quad-core socket AM3 AMD processor. Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results on the next several pages.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations

test system reference system #1 reference system #2 reference system #3 processor: amd Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition AMD Phenom II X4 910e Black Edition AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition AMD Athlon II X4 635 AMD Athlon II X4 620 AMD Athlon II X3 435 AMD Athlon II X2 250 AMD Athlon II X2 240e Intel Core i5 750 Intel Core i7 920 Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU Process Technology: 45nm 45nm 45nm 45nm Socket: Socket AM3 Socket LGA1156 Socket LGA1366 Socket LGA775 Clock Speed: 17x 200MHz = 3.4 GHz (965 BE) 16x 200MHz = 3.2 GHz(955 BE) 13x 200MHz = 2.6 GHz(910e) 14 x 200 MHz = 2.8 GHz (720 BE) 16.0x 200MHz = 3.2 GHz (555BE) 15.5x 200MHz = 3.1 GHz (550BE) 14.5x 200MHz = 2.9 GHz (AIIX4 635) 13x 200MHz = 2.6 GHz (AIIX4 620) 14.5x 200MHz = 2.9 GHz (AIIX3 435) 15x 200MHz = 3.0 GHz (AIIX2 250) 14x 200 MHz = 2.8 GHz (AIIX2 240e) 20x 133MHz = 2.66 GHz 20 x 133 MHz = 2.67 GHz 9.5 x 333 MHz = 3.16GHz (E8500) 9 x 333 MHz = 3.0 GHz (E8500) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P (AMD 790FX) Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 (Intel P55) MSI X58 Platinum (X58 Express) MSI X48 Platinum (X48 Express) Videocard: ASUS ENGTS250 DK (Geforce GTS250) ASUS ENGTS250 DK (Geforce GTS250) ASUS ENGTS250 DK (Geforce GTS 250) MSI NX8800GTS-T2D320E (Geforce 8800GTS) Memory: 2x2GB Corsair XMS3-1600C9 DDR3 2x2GB Corsair XMS3-1600C8 DDR3 3x2GB Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D DDR3 2x1GB Patriot PDC32G1600LLK DDR3 Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740 Optical Drive: ASUS BC-1205PT-BD Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 750W Heatsink: Athlon64 K8 Reference Heatsink Intel Reference 1156 Heatsink Intel Reference 1366 Heatsink Intel Reference 775 Heatsink Software Setup: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate AMD Catalyst 9.12 nVIDIA Forceware 195.62 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Intel 9.1.1.1019 nVIDIA Forceware 190.62 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Intel INF 9.1.0.1012 nVIDIA Forceware 182.08 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Intel INF 9.0.0.1008 nVIDIA Forceware 169.25 Benchmarks: System Benchmarks: SYSmark 2007 PCMark Vantage SiSoft Sandra 2009 Calculation B/M: Super Pi 1.5 wPrime 2.0 ScienceMark 2.3 WinRAR 3.8 Bibble 5 Rendering B/M: Cinebench R10 POV-Ray 3.7 SPECviewPerf 10 Gaming B/M: 3DMark06 3DMark Vantage Cyrsis FEAR