AMD releases the AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
posted:
8/13/2009 6:48:00 AM
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Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
It wasn’t too long ago that AMD released their Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition with CPU speed of 3.4GHz, 8MB of cache, and being unlocked. Now a few months later, AMD is upping their high end CPU model just a bit with the release of the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition.
The AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition clocks in at 3.6GHz with the rest of the specs being the same as the 955 Black Edition. Yes, it’s a small bump in clock speed but it’s priced at the previous 955’s cost of $245. The Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition makes AMD ever so closer with competing with Intel’s top of the line Core 2 Quad models but it’s still not going to match the top of the line i7 Core yet. Even so, it’s not going to cost you an arm and a leg either.
Like the previous top AMD quad core part, the 965 is capable of being popped into some current AM2+ motherboards so the cost to upgrade your system if you already own an AM2+ system is pretty minimal. The CPU still supports DDR2 so if you are building a brand new system, you can do so at a lot lower price point than an i7 system. Once you want to use DDR3, just slide it into an AM3 motherboard and you’re good to go. Now, talking to AMD you’ll probably only get around a 10% increase in performance going the DDR3 route but that’s going to vary depending on the type of application you are running.
For you overclockers, AMD states this is CPU is a better overclocker than the 955 Black Edition. You can probably expect around 4GHz on regular air cooling without too many issues. Of course this will vary depending on the part but getting an extra 800MHz out of the processor would be pretty damn good without the need to get into any exotic cooling solutions. You’ll most likely have to do some increase in voltages to get there but that’s to be expected.
AMD’s Overdrive software gets a few upgrades as well to get some more speed out of the processors. Memory partners provide settings to gives you a little more headroom and more partners have submitted profiles currently. Also, the software looks at how many cores the application is using and puts the other cores in a lower power state while adding extra power to the cores being used similar to Intel’s method with Turbo Boost albeit it’s all software and not hardware.
While $245 isn’t bad for a processor, I think 955 Black Edition might be more appealing due to the decrease in price. Coming in around $199 on Newegg.com, you have a very capable overclocking processor that’s only 200MHz less than the 965 and costs $50 less.
So there you have the latest top dog from AMD. There are a bunch of reviews out now currently for the CPU and so far from what I’ve seen scores are good for the price you pay for the processor. Again, it won’t be the best processor out there but for the price you pay you’re getting a pretty good product nonetheless.
The AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition clocks in at 3.6GHz with the rest of the specs being the same as the 955 Black Edition. Yes, it’s a small bump in clock speed but it’s priced at the previous 955’s cost of $245. The Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition makes AMD ever so closer with competing with Intel’s top of the line Core 2 Quad models but it’s still not going to match the top of the line i7 Core yet. Even so, it’s not going to cost you an arm and a leg either.
Like the previous top AMD quad core part, the 965 is capable of being popped into some current AM2+ motherboards so the cost to upgrade your system if you already own an AM2+ system is pretty minimal. The CPU still supports DDR2 so if you are building a brand new system, you can do so at a lot lower price point than an i7 system. Once you want to use DDR3, just slide it into an AM3 motherboard and you’re good to go. Now, talking to AMD you’ll probably only get around a 10% increase in performance going the DDR3 route but that’s going to vary depending on the type of application you are running.
For you overclockers, AMD states this is CPU is a better overclocker than the 955 Black Edition. You can probably expect around 4GHz on regular air cooling without too many issues. Of course this will vary depending on the part but getting an extra 800MHz out of the processor would be pretty damn good without the need to get into any exotic cooling solutions. You’ll most likely have to do some increase in voltages to get there but that’s to be expected.
AMD’s Overdrive software gets a few upgrades as well to get some more speed out of the processors. Memory partners provide settings to gives you a little more headroom and more partners have submitted profiles currently. Also, the software looks at how many cores the application is using and puts the other cores in a lower power state while adding extra power to the cores being used similar to Intel’s method with Turbo Boost albeit it’s all software and not hardware.
While $245 isn’t bad for a processor, I think 955 Black Edition might be more appealing due to the decrease in price. Coming in around $199 on Newegg.com, you have a very capable overclocking processor that’s only 200MHz less than the 965 and costs $50 less.
So there you have the latest top dog from AMD. There are a bunch of reviews out now currently for the CPU and so far from what I’ve seen scores are good for the price you pay for the processor. Again, it won’t be the best processor out there but for the price you pay you’re getting a pretty good product nonetheless.
