14 DAY TRIAL // AMD has just added two new processors to its Athlon II X4 range, both of these chips being based on the Llano architecture traditionally used for A-Series APUs.
With the launch of Llano in mid-2011, everybody expected AMD to retire the Athlon II and Sempron brands that were previously used for mid-range processors on the K10 architecture.
However, the company continued to use the Athlon II and Sempron names for Llano products that didn't have on-board graphics cores.
The first Athlon II processor for FM1 was actually released by the chip maker shortly after the introduction of the A-Series APUs. This chip was called the Athlon II X4 631 and it included four computing cores clocked at 2.6GHz.
A few months later, AMD released the Athlon II 651, which also featured four processing cores but this time run at 3GHz.
Yesterday, AMD continued this trend by adding two other Llano-based Athlon II X4 processors, the 638 and 641.
Spotted for the first time in August last year, the Athlon II X4 641 is a quad-core part clocked at 2.8GHz, each of its cores including 1MB of L2 cache, according to CPU-World.
The chip features all the technologies that were introduced with K10 SKUs, but now utilizes the FM1 socket and has a TDP of 100W.
The second Athlon II processor to arrive, the 638, is also a quad-core part with 4MB of Level 2 cache, but this time it operates at 2.7GHz and has a TDP of just 65W.
The boxed version of the Athlon II X4 641 is available right now for pre-order from Provantage and a few other US online stores with prices starting at $90 (about 68 EUR). The Athlon II 638 is not yet available in stores, but it should be priced at $81 (61 EUR).