AMD today formally introduced its new quad-core series Athlon II. New models under the names Athlon II X4 620 and Athlon II X4 630 have already appeared in price lists of some European sellers of computers and computer components.

Both new AMD processor support socket AM3 and DDR3 memory types at up to 1333. Of special interest is the price, installed on the CPU X4 620: this is the lowest price on the quad-core processors ever to enter the market; it is even lower than some triple-core processors. The cheapest quad-core Intel processor, Core 2 Quad Q8200 with a frequency 2.33GGts.

AMD has made these processors are based on a new chip called Propus, which has four cores, do without L3 cache, and occupies an area of 169mm ². The smaller the area of the processor, the cheaper it should be a production, i.e. production of new models to cost the manufacturer less than production, such as CPU Phenom II on the nucleus Deneb, which include 6Mb L3 cache and have an area of 258mm ².

It is interesting that, according to AMD, some series processors Athlon II X4 will actually be based on the Deneb core with a disabled cache L3, presumably because of problems with supplies. This will unlock some new processor cache L3, but, first, an attempt to unlock the disabled component manufacturer of the processor leads to withdrawal from the guarantee, secondly, the evidence suggests that these processors will soon withdraw from the market.