AMD has made another step forward only a short time after releasing its new crop of six-core Phenom II X6 processors. Today brings the introduction of six new processors in its lower end Athlon II line-up.

These new processors are designed to take top spot in each of the Athlon II X2, X3 and X4 families (with their being new top models in their more energy efficient 'e' series as well). Aside from a few other minor tweaks made including the move to a C3 silicon stepping which gives an increase in supported memory speeds, each of these processors gets a minor 100MHz bump in clockspeed over its preceeding top-end chip, pushing the others down a notch with lower pricing. Though, the Athlon II X3 415e gets some special treatment with a 200MHz clock speed jump over the existing Athlon II X3 405e.

A bit of sour news comes with todays launch, however. Recent reports and sightings of a yet to be released Phenom II X4 960T gave much anticipation due to it being based on Thuban, screaming out core unlocking abilities and thus, super duper value. Unfortunately it's been learned that while there has been confirmation of this chip's existence, they were of engineering samples that AMD has no intent to release to market; at least not any time soon.

And here's today's coverage looking at some of these processors in closer detail :-

- Hot Hardware
- Neoseeker
- Legit Reviews
- HiTechLegion
- Benchmark Reviews
- Overclockers Club