785G And H55: Two Powerful Mini-ITX-Based Desktop Solutions

AMD Processors: Athlon II X2, Phenom II X3, And X4

AMD provided four different processors for testing with our Sapphire board. Why not try all of them?

AMD Athlon II X2 240e

The 240e is a low-power, dual-core processor that stays within a 45 W power envelope. Two cores running at 2.8 GHz should still provide more than enough performance for office and multimedia applications. The processor costs just over $100.

AMD Athlon II X2 260u

The "u" stands for ultra-low voltage, and we'd agree that 25 W is seriously low. To reach that level, AMD throttled the clock speed to only 1.8 GHz, which noticeably impacts performance benchmarks. This chip isn’t really efficient, but it's the lowest-power solution we can think of without jeopardizing desktop features. Still, Intel platforms provide lower idle power at much higher performance.

AMD Phenom II X3 705e

The Phenom II X3 705e is AMD’s low-power, triple-core offering, coming with 6 MB of L3 cache and three cores that run at 2.5 GHz. The chip specifies a 65 W TDP.

AMD Phenom II X4 905e

Last but not least, we tested the quad-core Phenom II X4 905e, also 2.5 GHz and based on a 65 W thermal envelope. However, the 905e packs more horsepower than the 705e. The benchmarks, particularly our efficiency run, prove that this CPU delivers the best performance per watt.

Overview Table