AMD's Athlon II X2 250 performed well in all of my tests. It's a very solid performer for a dual-core chip, especially considering its relatively low price point. From a power user's perspective it may not elicit much excitement, but budget conscious consumers and silent HTCP (home theatre PCs) aficionados should take notice. Coupled with a decent 790GX-based motherboard and 4GB of DDR2 RAM, for example, and you've got yourself a relatively high performing entry-level system for under 250. All that's missing is the L3 cache, which was necessary in order to cut costs. But due to the lack of this L3 cache, the power consumption has been cut down by around 10% compared with the dual-core Phenom II. Overclockers and gamers on a budget should stick to AMD's Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition.