The AMD Athlon II X3 445 is the fastest triple-core processor in the Athlon II series with its overall clock frequency of 3.1GHz. With a street price of $84.99 and a 200MHz boost over its predecessor is the Athlon II X3 445 worth it? Read on to see how it performs in the benchmarks and to see how it handles being overclocked on our AMD 890GX test system.

The AMD Athlon II X3 445 was a processor I was looking forward to working with when the opportunity had presented itself. Not necessarily because it is going to be the fastest processor out there, but it only has three active cores. Whats that mean? Well, that most likely there is a fourth core under the heat spreader. With any luck I would be able to unlock the fourth core, and be able to test the AMD Athlon II X3 445 as a Quad Core as well. Fortunately there was a fourth core on the AMD Athlon II X3 445...