AMD's New Quad-Core Chip Priced Below $100

AMD announced its first quad-core processor priced at less than $100 on Wednesday, lowering the bar for consumers to buy a quad-core PC.

AMD has priced the 2.6-GHz AMD Athlon II X4 620 at $99 for system builders, with the caveat that pricing may vary by region. According to AMD, a bundle of an Athlon II X4 620 with the MSI 785GTM motherboard - which uses its latest value 785G chipset - should cost about $170, AMD said.

AMD launched the Athlon II brand in June, but until now processors in the family have only contained two cores. Like the other members of the Athlon II family, the chip contains 2 Mbytes of level-2 cache, the ability to connect to either DDR-2 or DDR-3 memory, and version 3.0 of AMD's PowerNow technology.

"Our goal is to deliver a great computing experience and maximize value for our customers," said John Cook, vice president of marketing for HP's global PC business. "The new AMD quad-core processors offer the right balance between excellent performance and price, and allow HP to continue to be a best-in-class provider of consumer technology." Link...