AMD's released a flurry of new CPUs in the past few weeks. Up for eval today is the X2 4800+. This CPU is based on AMD's new 65-nm Brisbane core and runs at 2.5GHz. With the smaller manufacturing process, the X2 4800+ should deliver better thermals and power, but does it? Yes! In fact, you may be surprised by how much. What about overclocking? You'll have to read today's article to find out! What you will get from today?s 65-nm AMD CPUs though is better thermals. This is because the new 65-nm CPUs boast lower power consumption figures. AMD lists a peak power rating of 65W across the board for all their 65-nm CPUs. In comparison, AMD?s 90-nm CPUs ran at 89W max, with energy efficient models at 65W and 35W.

With the smaller process, die size is also reduced, down from 183mm2 to 126mm2 on AMD?s 65-nm processors. The new 65-nm CPU?s are built on AMD?s ?Brisbane? core and all announced models to date ship with 512K L2 cache per processing core (1MB total L2 cache). Model numbers announced to date include the 5000+, 4800+, 4400+, and 4000+. The following chart summarizes AMD?s current CPU lineup as it stands today, for simplicity we?re just listing X2 and FX CPUs:

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