AMD Athlon II x2 250 Review - Part 2

Here is PART TWO of our look at the AMD Athlon II x2 250 CPU. We really wanted to take a look at this CPU and see how it performs in gaming situations. The chip is retailing for around $80 and is a great way to get into the AM3 socket.

Test System:

Gigabyte MA770T-UD3p AM3 Motherboard

4 Gigs Corsair Dominator GT 1600 Mhz DDR3

ATI Radeon 4870 1 Gig

PC Power and Cooling 610 Watt Silencer PSU

Antec 300 Case

Stock AMD HSF

Windows Vista Home Premium 64 Bit

3DMark Vantage - Performance Setting

Stock Speed - 3000 Mhz



13% OC - 3450 Mhz



17% OC - 3600 Mhz



As you can see, we were able to achieve a relatively high OC with this chip. And remember, this is with a stock AMD heatsink, so even more would probably be possible. We are actually going to see if we can hit the FSB to 250 and get 3750 Mhz next. But, even at 3600 Mhz, we see a pretty substantial increase in our 3DMark Vantage score.

Obviously, these are synthetic scores, so it doesn't mean it will translate to gaming in a sure fire manner. But, we can safely say that it will handle most gaming situations in a respectable manner. Even at stock speeds, this chip is able to produce scores that we like for this level of a system.