mid-range AMD CPUs

[Dr.Khron]

My folks are looking to buy a new PC, and a lot of the mid-range PCs come with AMD processors. I've been an Intel fanboy for so long now that its difficult for me to advise them on AMD CPUs.

For example, this Dell from Walmart seems like a lot of value for $798:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=12554464

However, it comes with this processor:
AMD Athlon II X3 400e processor

Relatively speaking, how fast is that thing?
What is the minimum AMD CPU you might recommend for general use?

[DJ Bobo]

PCMark Vantage puts the Athlon II X3 400e (2.2GHz) roughly on the same level as a Core 2 Duo E7300 (2.67GHz).
But since it's a triple core, multitasking will be better and performance will be better than your average dual core on applications that can use more than 2 cores.
The e means it's an energy saving CPU (TDP of 45W only, whereas the Core 2 Duo has a TDP of 65W).

Generally, any AMD processor with a "II" will do perfectly for office and multimedia applications.
But for gaming, I would recommend at least a Phenom II X3 (has more cache than the Athlon II X3 => about 10% faster by same clock), just because GTA4 needs no less than 3 cores to run smoothly. Not even overclocked Core 2 Duo CPUs can run it smoothly!

[Przemek_Sperling]

AMD processors entry level and midrange processors are at least on par with Intel chips, if not better. I have to say that I think that my next processor will be based on AMD (I currently use an oced Intel chip).

Athlon II x2 and x4 series are particularly good CPUs. Very good stock performance and they overclock up to ca. 3.8 GHz. Clock to clock performance is not quite good like their Phenom brothers but the price is unbeatable.

You should pay some attention to the mobo because with decent mobos you have around 75% chance to unlock the fourth core of the processor you mention:
http://www.guru3d.com/news/phenom-ii-x3--enable-the-4th-core/
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1051214/amd-shouldn-kill-core-unlocking

[Blue_MiSfit]

Minimum AMD CPU I'd suggest for general use would be an Athlon64 X2. The new Athlon II CPUs are indeed much faster, but you can get away with less :)

Pentium Dual Core (reduced cache Core 2 Duo) is a great choice as well.

~MiSfit

[Przemek_Sperling]

Here you have what you can expect from:
- 2 core Athlons - http://www.frazpc.pl/artykuly/743/AMD/ATHLON/II/X2/250/POWROT/DO/LASK
- 4 core Athlons - http://www.frazpc.pl/artykuly/750/AMD/ATHLON/II/X4/620/Poczatek/ery/tanich/czterech/rdzeni

Both sites are in Polish but the most important things are selfexplanatory. Yoy can compare them to stock clocked and overclocked Intels. TechArt x264 benchmark is shown there too.