AMD Athlon II X4 640: 4-Cores On The Cheap

3DMark06's built-in CPU test is a multi-threaded DirectX gaming metric that's useful for comparing relative performance between similarly equipped systems.  This test consists of two different 3D scenes that are processed with a software renderer that is dependent on the host CPU's performance.  Calculations that are normally reserved for your 3D accelerator are instead sent to the CPU for processing and rendering.  The frame-rate generated in each test is used to determine the final score.

The Athlon II X4 640 performed well in the 3DMark06 CPU benchmark, besting all the Core i5 661 and Core 2 Quad Q9400.

3DMark Vantage's CPU Test 2 is a multi-threaded test designed for comparing relative game physics processing performance between systems.  This test consists of a single scene that features an air race of sorts, with a complex configuration of gates. There are aircraft in the test that trail smoke and collide with various cloth and soft-body obstacles, each other, and the ground. The smoke spreads, and reacts to the planes as they pass through it as well and all of this is calculated on the host CPU. 

The new Athlon II X4 640 nudged ahead of the Athlon II 635 in PCMark Vantage's CPU Test 2, but it couldn't keep pace with the i5 or Q9650. It did manage to outpace the Q9400 though.