AMD today expanded its AMD Phenom II and AMD Athlon II processor families for desktop with several new processors designed to give mainstream consumers performance capabilities from their desktop PCs at attractive price points. AMD's new processor offerings from AMD include the new AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition processor, AMD's fastest dual-core desktop processor to date at 3.2 GHz. The CPU is a good choice for the budget-conscious consumer's Microsoft Windows 7 system platform at a $99 Suggested System Builder Price (SSBP). The processor is built out of new, C3-revision silicon that has hardware C1E and may overclock somewhat better than previous silicon, according to AMD. The X2 555 looks to be AMD's fastest dual-core offering.

AMD's second offering is the new new AMD Athlon II X4 635 processor, designed to provide quad-core performance to handle the demands of multitasking and multi-threaded applications. The arrival of the new AMD says the X4 635's arrival has also pushed the X4 630 to $99, which means users will actually enjoy a 200MHz speed boost at that price point. AMD's previous $99 quad-core chip, the X4 620, ran at just 2.6GHz.

CPU Name	Cores	Frequency	TDP	L2 cache	L3 cache	1ku Price
AMD Athlon II X2 255	2	3.1 GHz	65W	1MB	-	$74
AMD Athlon II X3 440	3	3.0 GHz	95W	1.5MB	-	$84
AMD Athlon II X4 635	4	2.9 GHz	95W	2MB	-	$119
AMD Phenom II X2 555	2	3.2 GHz	80W	1MB	6MB	$99
AMD Phenom II X4 910e	4	2.6 GHz	65W	4MB	6MB	$169

When combined with the latest generation of ATI Radeon 5800 Series graphics cards and AMD 7-series chipsets, these new AMD Phenom II and AMD Athlon II processors can provide consumers HD entertainment, support for DirectX 11 gaming feature, energy efficiency with dynamic power management and socket AM3 compatibility for compatibility with motherboards based on the upcoming AMD 800-series chipset.

AMD has released these new processors in an effort to compete with Intel's 32-nm Core i3 and i5 processors released earlier this month.