AMD has just introduced a new CPU aimed at home theater PCs, small form factor systems, and small-footprint corporate desktops. Dubbed the Athlon X2 BE-2350, this chip has a confusing new alphanumeric amalgamation attached to its name, and what could be cooler than that? Perhaps a 45W thermal/power rating for the processor. The BE-2350 sips power like a mobile CPU but carries a wallet-friendly price tag of under 100 bucks, which might make it an attractive prospect for your next system build.

AMD intends to pair up the Athlon X2 BE-2350 with its 690G chipset as part of a push into smaller form factors, including systems built around its proposed small-footprint DTX specification. The BE-2350 should serve quite well in that role. It's not the fastest CPU around, but it should perform well enough for use in a home theater PC, office desktop system, or basic email/surfing/word processing box. Those of you looking to use this chip in a home theater PC may be interested to know that I tried playing back an H.264-encoded HD DVD (the movie Babel) on our test system, and the processor handled it quite well, with CPU utilization ranging between about 48 and 63%. CPU utilization was even lower with a VC-1 encoded disc. This system's GeForce 7-series video card can't accelerate the most processor-intensive stages of H.264 decoding, yet playback was consistently fluid, so the BE-2350 looks to be very much up to the task.

Power-wise, the BE-2350 lives up to its billing and is a worthy successor to the 35W version of the Athlon 64 X2 3800+-or it will be, provided AMD can actually supply these chips in sufficient volume. Our power consumption tests put the BE-2350 very close to its predecessor-just about 5W higher-both at idle and under load. Truth be told, the measured power is only part of the story. The power draw numbers we saw from the Core 2 Duo E4300 weren't bad, either, but its 65W TDP rating remains a sticking point. The fact that PC makers and chassis designers can count on a 45W TDP will make the BE-2350 very attractive to them. The BE-2350's low-power cred is enhanced by the availability of AMD's 690G chipset, as well. We've found the idle power consumption of Intel's G965 Express chipset to be substantially higher than the 690G. All of these factors, combined with its $91 price tag, make the Athlon X2 BE-2350 a stand-out value in a low-power processor.

Then there's the fact I was able to get our review unit cranked up to 3GHz with nothing but a stock air cooler and a slight voltage bump. The low-power aspect goes out the window when the BE-2350 is flipping bits at 3003MHz and 1.425V, but then this puppy morphs into a high-performance processor the equal of anything AMD has to offer. I don't want to overstate things on this front; the Core 2 Duo E4300 is also known for ample overclocking headroom, and a 3GHz Athlon X2 isn't likely to match a Core 2 at 2.5GHz in overall performance. Still, for a cheap CPU that you may not mind frying in an evil overclocking experiment, the BE-2350 is hard to match, if most of them end up overclocking like ours did