The new dual core processors announced today have a pretty okay TDP (peak wattage).

Much like the last-gen products, we have active & independent cores here. Each core can be clocked down independently if not utilized, saving heaps of current. If the processors are temporarily inactive, they can pretty much put themselves in sleep-mode (clocking down). Hyper Transport will power down and a low-power stage is activated on the memory.

• Athlon II X2 250 has a 65W TDP
• Phenom II X2 550 BE has a 80W TDP

AMDs Cool'n'Quiet technology was recently updated to revision 3.0 and provides even better power management. Keywords here are improved power tuning with additional performance states, and up to 50% less power at idle compared to Cool'n‘Quiet 2.0.

We used an 790FX based AM3 motherboard and as such had to add a dedicated graphics card (GTX 280), you'll notice that the end-result overall in idle and peak wattage is very impressive.

As you can see, once we stress the CPU cores with Prime95 (stress test), our power consumption maxes out at 160~170 Watts.

Generic AMD Overdrive 3.0 & overclocking

For the overclocking part you guys have to forgive me for the lack of information. We are very time restricted.

We left Athlon II X2 250 overclocking for what it is. The processor is not a BE edition, and overclocking will likely be hard. We did give the Phenom II X2 550 BE a quick spin though and with normal air cooling (OCZ Vendetta cooler) we got the processor up to 3.7 GHz quite fast. Just increase the CPU voltage a little and (this is the BE / Black Edition) the processor multiplier.

BE processors are a must when it comes to overclocking. Anyway, 3.7 GHz Phenom II architecture on air cooling for a 100 bucks... that's just heaps of value.

Check out the screenshot below where you can observe the overclock. Mind you that temps will go up a bit but even so, at 3700 MHz with a Vendetta cooler we top out at roughly 55~59 Degrees C / 138 F.

Click to enlarge