AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition

There is nothing wrong with an incremental update—especially an update that adds functioning without touching pricing. such is the case with amd’s unprecedented phenom ii x4 965 black edition , which arrived at our functioning lab running at 3.4 ghz—200 mhz faster than its predecessor , the phenom ii x4 955 be. things else is precisely the same as the phenom ii x4 955 , reviewed back in april 2009.

So , provided the latest phenom ii is predictably faster than amd’s former flagship , why is today’s launch injustice significant? in short , it comes seemingly a few weeks ahead of intel’s upcoming lga 1156-based p55 platform debut—an event that’ll nearly certainly play a bigger role in the adoption of nehalem-based machines than either the lga 1366 core i7 or xeon 5500-series cpus possess hence far. after all , lga 1156 is going to be the interface that purportedly makes intel’s latest architecture accessible to the mainstream , supplanting the core 2 family at a number of affordable cost points.

No doubt , those unprecedented core i5/i7 cpus volition be faster than the core 2 quads they succeed , and at competitive prices. seemingly when amd looked like it had achieved functioning parity with the top intent of intel’s core micro-architecture , lga 1156-based platforms seem nearly sure to sit the bar higher.

Thus , today’s phenom ii x4 965 be introduction is in Truth a quite important one for amd. upon one hand , it could gain the organization its mainstream functioning crown—at least for a few weeks. upon the other , it could be the last time phenom ii looks as competitive as it does now. of course , that’s going to depend mightily upon how the upcoming intel chips do.

Up against core i5

Of course , we’re not capable to proclaim functioning numbers with the pre-production core i5 processors currently running in the lab , injustice it’s hard to officially quantify how phenom ii volition size up. but we can construct best guesses using today’s core i7s as rough trial subjects.

You’ll find all of our general benchmarks upon the pages that pursue. first , notwithstanding , we wanted to sit up phenom ii x4 965 be against a hypothetical core i5-750—a processor expected to cost fewer than $200 when it launches. we simulated the 2.66 ghz offering with a core i7-920 , which runs at the same clock rate. of course , we had to haul out a single channel of memory (yielding two channels of ddr3-1333) and disable hyper-threading , since core i5 won’t possess that feature. the one variable we couldn’t reproduce was core i5’s enhanced turbo boost , which is expected to accelerate clocks to 3.2 ghz when a single core is sprightly. core i7-920 seemingly benefits from a single bin of turbo boost , yielding 2.8 ghz instead.

The seemingly other platform capability setting lga 1156 apart from lga 1366 is the apply of on-die pci express 2.0 , which we’ve tested extensively and can pronounce that , in single-card configurations , has nearly zero impact upon functioning versus the x58’s chipset-based connectivity.

As we've already mentioned , the phenom ii x4 965 black edition is an update to a intimate project. in fact , amd readily admits that the silicon belongs to the same revision utilized to enable its phenom ii x4 955 black edition , running at 3.2 ghz. to that intent , it centers upon a 45nm devising process , it visage a 6mb l3 cave , boasts cool'n'quiet 3.0 engineering Science , and better department prediction than the first-generation phenom family.

Like its predecessors , the phenom ii x4 965 sports 64kb of l1 data and instruction cave per core , plus 512kb l2 cave per core , to supplement the shared l3.

An integrated 128-bit ddr2/ddr3 memory controller (running at 2 ghz by default) interfaces with a twosome of 64-bit channels. provided you're using the x4 965 upon an am2+ motherboard , speeds of up to ddr2-1066 are officially available. provided you're using it upon an am3 platform , you can install ddr3-1333 , even Though it should be notorious that seemingly one module per channel works at that frequency. and whereas amd shipped its phenom ii x4 940 with a 1 , 800 mhz hypertransport combine , the x4 965 accelerates that to 2 ghz--just like the x4 955 before it.

The chip's nominal voltage range is .825v-1.425v , injustice we won't be surprised provided cogency consumption falls within the previous flagship's ballpark. because it runs at 3.4 ghz , notwithstanding , amd is rating the x4 965 at 140w instead of the 125w utilized in previous flagship phenom iis.

Overclocking

In past phenom ii reviews , we’ve stuck to amd’s processor-in-box resolution for our overclocking efforts , very consistently falling short of the 4 ghz smooth injustice numerous enthusiasts intent for with flagship cpus. thermalright was lenient enough to send over the socket am3-compatible bracket for its ultra 120 extreme , which we’ve started using in reviews.

Yes , we know phenom ii scales injustice with better cooling , doesn’t tolerate from a “cold bug , ” and volition operated in excess of 6 ghz. but high-end air cooling is in Truth as aggressive as most enthusiasts are willing to go , with the exception of those running water. smooth there , room temperature is as much as you can hope for.

Using 1.5v upon asus’ m4a79t deluxe—already a quite aggressive voltage setting—we were capable to whack 4 ghz with the 3.4 ghz phenom ii x4 965. that setting was unstable , even Though , and we scaled back to 3.9 ghz. unfortunately , crashes in a combine of our benchmarks forced us to drop back to 3.8 ghz , where we were capable to complete the full suite of tests. the top result in each forthcoming chart reflects the functioning improvement of adding 400 mhz to amd’s unprecedented flagship.