There isn't a lot of new information go over with AMD's Phenom X3 processors. First all the processors are denoted with an 8x50 series as opposed to the 9x50 of the Phenom quad core counterparts so it should be fairly easy to tell if a CPU is quad or triple core. Also all triple cores released to the channel are the B3 revision with the TLB fix and no performance penalty, although some OEMs have been selling 8x00 series triple core Phenoms without the fix. Due to one less core power consumption is also lower with the Phenom 8x50 processors rated for a 95W max TDP.

The architecture on the triple core Phenom remains unchanged the only difference is one core is disabled for whatever reason, whether a bad core or because one core might be lagging behind in clockspeed compared to the others it allows AMD to use as many dies as possible and provide a processor that fits in between quad and triple cores for a very reasonable price. The 8750 which runs at 2.4GHz will be launching at $195, $165 for the 8650 at 2.3GHz and $145 for the 8450 at 2.1GHz. Three cores for under $150 isn't bad at all. This also allows for AMD to fill out it's Cartwheel platform, with a 780G motherboard for around $100 you get good integrated video, UVD chip for HD decoding, add in a triple for for $145 and for $245, a cost of Intel's cheapest quad core, you can get a very good setup. This seems especially formidable for an HTPC or a computer for those who want multi-tasking power but may not need the fastest processor for gaming or are looking at a second PC.

Here are the technical specs from AMD.

AMD Phenom X3 8000-series processor TECH SPECS:

Processor Model / Frequency: X3 8750 / 2.4GHz

Processor Model / Frequency: X3 8650 / 2.3GHz

Processor Model / Frequency: X3 8450 / 2.1GHz

L1 Cache Sizes: 64K of L1 instruction and 64K of L1 data cache per core (512KB total L1 per processor)

L2 Cache Sizes: 512KB of L2 data cache per core (1.5MB total L2 per processor)

L3 Cache Size: 2MB (shared)

Memory Controller Type: Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller *

Memory Controller Speed: Up to 1.8GHz with Dual Dynamic Power Management

Types of Memory Supported: Support for unregistered DIMMs up to PC2 8500 (DDR2-1066MHz)

HyperTransport 3.0: One 16-bit/16-bit link @ up to 3.6GHz full duplex (2.0GHz x2)

Total Processor Bandwidth: Up to 31.5 GB/s bandwidth

Packaging: Socket AM2+ 940-pin organic micro pin grid array (micro-PGA)

Fab location: AMD's Fab 36 wafer fabrication facilities in Dresden, Germany

Process Technology: 65-nanometer DSL SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology

Approximate Transistor count: ~ 450 million (65nm)

Approximate Die Size: 285 mm2 (65nm)

Max Ambient Case Temp: 70o Celsius

Nominal Voltage: 1.05-1.25 Volts

Max TDP: 95 Watts

Let's move onto overclocking.

Here is our 8750 at its stock 2.4GHz clock speed with the HT link at 1.8GHz.

AMD's Phenoms definitely aren't the overclockers that Intel's Core 2 Quads have been, though most Intel Quads stop at around 3-3.2GHz and are difficult to push farther. AMD's Phenom tops out around 2.8-2.9GHz with the chips they've released so far. Will one less core help push Phenom further?

Apparently not. Another 400Mhz overclock which isn't bad but one less core appears to not make any difference when it comes to Phenom overclocking. 2.82GHz was the farther we could reach stable giving us a 420MHz overclock which isn't bad at all but AMD will need to ramp up the clock speeds significantly to compete with Intel, something we're unlikely to see until 45nm cores are released. We bumped up the voltage to 1.35v in the BIOS but more voltage did not solve the problem with reaching higher clockspeeds with the Phenom 8750, something similar we've found with the 9x50 series.

Now let's move onto benchmarks.

Here's our current test system.

Our test OS was Windows Vista Home SP1 with Nvidia's 174.74 of Forceware drivers. All the latest software revisions were used in our testing.

For our game testing we used lower graphic settings in order to stress the processor and relieve the graphics card from being the bottleneck.

Though Crytek was promising quad core support in Crysis our testing and others prove there doesn't appear to be any quad core support at all in Crysis. Here we see the Phenom 9850 come out on top but the 8750 and 9750 are very close in their speed and the dual core 5600+ running at 2.8GHz received the same score as the Phenom 8750.

Unreal Tournament 3 engine is the most popular game engine on the market today and not only that supports quad core processors. Here we see the 9750 running at the same stock come out on top of the 8750 while the 5600+ which was competitive with the triple core 8750 in Crysis can't compete with it in Unreal Tournament 3 with a 21fps difference. The difference between quad and triple core processors at the same speed though resulted in only a 3fps difference.

3DMark 2006 is a synthetic benchmark that weighs heavily on the strenght of the processor and is very multi-threaded. The 8750 sees a 500 point drop from the 9750 but gains 600 points on the 5600+.

Let's move onto to more benchmarks.

Cinebench 10 is a multi-threaded image renderer. Here having one less core stands out more than in Unreal Tournament 3 dropping the time to render about 35 seconds.

Pov Ray renderer uses all cores available and we see a similar pattern we saw in Cinebench10.

PCMark 05 is a benchmark which tests general day to day use such as zipping, browsing the web, office programs, hard drive start up times, etc. Again it is a very multi-threaded app so one less core hurts though it is less likely to make a difference in real-world multi-tasking.

Valve's Map Compilation benchmark shows the time it takes to build an entire map which can be quite time exhausting for developers. Less cores rears it's head again here.

Valve's particle gives an overall score with the CPU's ability to render particles on screen and is very multi-threaded and should be implemented more and more in future Source revisions though current games only use two cores.

Finally let's look at power consumption.