Legit Processor Reviews

AMD Athlon II X2 250 and Phenom II X2 550 Processors

Manufacturer: AMD
Product: Athlon II X2 250, Phenom II X2 550
Date: Mon, Jun 01, 2009 - 08:00 PM
Written By: Nathan Kirsch -
Share:

Overclocking

Overclocking greatly varies due to what hardware is being used and who is doing the overclocking. Always remember that no two pieces of hardware will perform the same, so our results will differ from what you might be able to get.

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Processor Stock 3.2Ghz

With stock BIOS settings, the Athlon II X2 250 processor runs with a 200MHz bus speed and an x15.0 multiplier that is used to reach the final core clock of 3.0GHz.

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Processor Overclocking

Since the AMD Athlon II X2 250 is multiplier locked the only thing that can be down to overclock the processor is to raise the bus speed (base clock) till the processor becomes unstable. By raising the CPU Core Voltage to 1.46V and increasing the bus speed to 264MHz from 200MHz, we were able to reach an impressive 3.96GHz. Not bad for a system that was running XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 heat sink (air cooling). This is an overclock of 961MHz, which is impressive for an $87 processor.

AMD Phenom II X2 550 Processor Stock

Moving on to the AMD Phenom II X2 550 we found that with the stock BIOS settings, the processor runs with a 200MHz bus speed and an x15.5 multiplier that is used to reach the final core clock of 3.1GHz. This processor is multiplier unlocked, so when overclocking you can raise both the multiplier and the bus speed to help 'fine tune' the overclock.

AMD Phenom II X2 550 Overclock

We increased the multiplier from x15.5 all the way up to x19 and then increased the bus speed from 200MHz to 215MHz with little effort. This was enough to break the 4GHz mark as the overall clock frequency was 4.09Ghz, which is great. This is an overclock of 985MHz, which is roughly what we saw on the Athlon II X2 250 processor. It seems both of these processors love to be overclocked at we were able to get nearly 1GHz overclocks with air cooling! Not bad for $87 and $102 processors if you ask us.

Next Page - Final Thoughts & Conclusion


Review Index
Page 1 - Athlon is Back!! Long Live Athlon II X2
Page 2 - The Test System
Page 3 - Sandra 2009 Memory Bandwidth
Page 4 - Photodex ProShow Gold 3.2
Page 5 - Sony Vegas 8.0c
Page 6 - Microsoft Excel 2007
Page 7 - Cinebench R9.5
Page 8 - Cinebench R10
Page 9 - POV-Ray 3.7 Beta 25
Page 10 - POV-Ray Real-Time Raytracing
Page 11 - Futuremark 3DMark06
Page 12 - World in Conflict
Page 13 - Crysis Warhead
Page 14 - Power Consumption
Page 15 - Overclocking
Page 16 - Final Thoughts & Conclusion