Overclocking Results:

stock max. oc processor speed: 3.1 ghz 3.81 ghz multiplier / bus speed: 15.5x 200mhz 15.5x 245mhz if you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers: Overclocking the CPU and Memory Overclocking the Videocard

AMD's mainstream quad-core 3.1GHz Athlon II X4 645 processor retails for $122 so it's a pretty good value out of the gate. However, given that Athlon II processors lack L3 cache, a bit of overclocking can do wonders to make things seem a little faster still.

Before PCSTATS begins its overclocking adventures, the test system memory is first configured from DDR3-1066 to run in DDR3-800 MHz mode so it wouldn't hold the CPU back. The Athlon II X4 645 processor is multiplier locked, so we'll be overclocking it by increasing the bus speed alone. PCSTATS has seen mixed overclocking results from the mainstream Athlon II chips but we're still going to aim for the magic 4 GHz!

With the Athlon II X4 645 locked and loaded into an ASUS Crosshair IV Formula motherboard, we set about overclocking the bus speed from the its default 200MHz. The first few increments up to 235MHz came and went without any trouble. We pressed on with a 245MHz bus and then 250MHz..... but the system failed to boot into Windows 7.

In the end PCSTATS settled for a maximum bus speed overclock of 245MHz, resulting in a modest overclock to 3.81GHz for the little quad-core Athlon II X4 645 processor. Not bad at all, but not qute 4GHz either.

Prelude to Benchmarks

Over the following page PCSTATS will be running AMD's 3.1GHz quad-core AMD Athlon II X4 645 processor though our standard set of gaming, productivity, and multi-threaded processor benchmarks. There are a wide variety of real world and synthetic benchmarks to illustrate the different performance qualities users can expect from this quad-core socket AM3 AMD processor. Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results on the next several pages.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations

test system reference system #1 reference system #2 reference system #3 processor: amd phenom ii x4 1090t amd phenom ii x4 1075t amd phenom ii x4 970 be AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE AMD Phenom II X4 910e AMD Phenom II X2 555 BE AMD Athlon II X4 645 AMD Athlon II X4 635 AMD Athlon II X4 620 AMD Athlon II X3 435 AMD Athlon II X2 240e Intel Core i5 750 Intel Core i7 920 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU Process Technology: 45nm 45nm 45nm 45nm Socket: Socket AM3 Socket LGA1156 Socket LGA1366 Socket LGA775 Clock Speed: 16x 200MHz = 3.2GHz (1090T) 15x 200MHz = 3.0GHz (1070T) 17.5x 200MHz = 3.5GHz (970 BE) 17x 200MHz = 3.4GHz (965 BE) 13x 200MHz = 2.6GHz (910e) 16.0x 200MHz = 3.2GHz (555BE) 15.5x 200MHz = 2.9GHz (AIIX4 645) 14.5x 200MHz = 2.9GHz (AIIX4 635) 13x 200MHz = 2.6GHz (AIIX4 620) 14.5x 200MHz = 2.9GHz (AIIX3 435) 14x 200 MHz = 2.8GHz (AIIX2 240e)< STRONG > 20x 133MHz = 2.66GHz 20x 133MHz = 2.67GHz 9x 333MHz = 3.0GHz (E8500) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P (AMD 790FX) MSI 890FXA-GD70 (AMD 890FX) ASUS Crosshair IV Formula (890FX) Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 (Intel P55) MSI X58 Platinum (X58 Express) MSI X48 Platinum (X48 Express) Videocard: ASUS ENGTS250 DK (Geforce GTS250) ASUS ENGTS250 DK (Geforce GTS250) ASUS ENGTS250 DK (Geforce GTS 250) MSI NX8800GTS-T2D320E (Geforce 8800GTS) Memory: 2x2GB Corsair XMS3-1600C8 DDR3 2x2GB Corsair XMS3-1600C8 DDR3 3x2GB Corsair TR3X6G1600C8D DDR3 2x1GB Patriot PDC32G1600LLK DDR3 Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740 Optical Drive: ASUS BC-1205PT-BD Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 750W Heatsink: Athlon64 K8 Reference Heatsink Intel Reference 1156 Heatsink Intel Reference 1366 Heatsink Intel Reference 775 Heatsink Software Setup: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate AMD Catalyst 10.3 nVIDIA Forceware 195.62 Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Intel 9.1.1.1019 nVIDIA Forceware 195.62 Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Intel INF 9.1.1.1019 nVIDIA Forceware 195.62 Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Intel INF 9.1.1.1019 nVIDIA Forceware 195.62 Benchmarks: System Benchmarks: SYSmark 2007 PCMark Vantage SiSoft Sandra 2009 Calculation B/M: Super Pi 1.5 wPrime 2.0 ScienceMark 2.3 WinRAR 3.8 Bibble 5 Rendering B/M: Cinebench R10 POV-Ray 3.7 SPECviewPerf 10 Gaming B/M: 3DMark06 3DMark Vantage Cyrsis FEAR