The AMD phenom range of processors has been around for a since 2007 and the range of their processors include dual, triple and quad core processors.

These include the single and dual core versions as well as the x3 and x4.

Today I will be focusing on the x3 and x4 processors for my review.

The Phenom x3

This powerful triple core processor has an L1 cache of 64 KB data and 64 KB of instruction per core, An L2 cache of 512 KB per core and an L3 cache of 2 MB, which is shared between all the cores.

It has a dual channel DDR2-1066 MHz memory controller with unganging option, sits in an AM2+ socket and runs at 2.1 to 2.5 Ghz.

These are well priced, retailing on ebay for just $24 at the time of writing this.

The Phenom x4

These little suckers are essentially the same as the x3 with the l1 cache of 64 KB data and instruction, L2 cache of 512 KB per core and an L3 cache of 2 MB. The only major difference is that it has 4 cores instead of just 3.

These are retailing for around the $100 mark at the time of writing this article.

While they aren’t as good as the Intel chips, they are very cheap and if you have an AMD Motherboard, sorry but unless you are willing to buy a new MOBO, you are stuck with one of these.