Value redefined.

The Athlon X3 line was always the middle child. Most people were initially skeptical about the chip's performance and hence demand never sky-rocketed. However, as time passed by and people started noticing the numbers the X3 had started raking in, in games and multi-theaded apps alike, it became an instant smash. The X3 435 that i had bought for my dad's computer is clocked at a modest 2.9Ghz with 1.5 MB L2 cache and a TDP count of 95W. I wanted to see how far i could push this baby so i shot for 4.1Ghz @ 1.52v and it was rock solid throughout without so much as even a single BSOD. I had upgraded to this processor from a Core 2 Duo E4500 and my jaw dropped as i saw average frames shoot right up and encoding time shoot right down. The most appealing feature was that the native die-design is based on a quad, meaning that it had a dormant core waiting to be unlocked! Unfortunately, the 4th core was unstable. Never proved to be a real hindrance as that would have been nothing more than just an added bonus. The juiciest part, however, had to be the price! Total value for money. In fact, i loved the chip so much that the following week i went out and bought the X3 445 for my own rig and this time it unlocked into a fully stable quad core with L3 cache. Well done AMD .