AMD saved the best for last: 2.3GHz Athlon 6500 Kuma

Well it only took about a year and some change, but that "Kuma" processor we've all been waiting for has finally arrived as the latest edition to the "Stars" family: the 2.3GHz Athlon 6500. Expreview, who recently got their hands on one of the chips, is touting it to be AMD's "best dual core ever" after a benchmark test where it ranked highest in overall performance against the Brisbane 2.6MHz and 2.3MHz Athlon64 X2 5000+. The Kuma also held its own with overclocking, easily reaching 3GHz at default voltage, and hitting 3.4GHz with a voltage increase. A 20W higher power consumption was noted as the primary con, with conjectures that it might be an "Agena with two cores disabled." The 65nm chip offers HT3.0 support, DDR2-1066 support via an integrated controller, Cool'n'Quiet 2.0, a shared 2MB L3 cache, includes SSE4A support, and will retail for around $110 when it hits store shelves.

[Via PC Perspective]

[thedesolate1 @ Sep 25th 2008 4:23PM]

Thats wonderful. I hope they go back to the good old days and start giving intel a run for its money on the higher end. Now if we could only get some quad core 45nm....

[Vliger2002 @ Sep 25th 2008 6:59PM]

Lol...2.6MHz and 2.3MHz...I believe that's supposed to be GHz...

[Yuhong Bao @ Sep 25th 2008 11:56PM]

"The 65nm chip offers HT3.0 support, DDR2-1066 support via an integrated controller, Cool'n'Quiet 2.0, a shared 2MB L3 cache, includes SSE4A support, and will retail for around $110 when it hits store shelves."
Looks like a dual core Phenom, just with a different name.