Austin (TX) - AMD announced today it has released a special Phenom 9600+ Black Edition quad-core processor with full access to clock multiplier control. Priced the same as the 9600+ standard edition, the Black Edition allows enthusiasts to tinker with the clock speed settings, to obtain higher clock speeds under extreme cooling. AMD included the warning, "AMD is not responsible for damages caused by overclocking (even when overclocking is enabled with AMD OverDrive software)".

It is our understanding that these Phenoms still contain the errata (bug) which causes a decrease in performance by up to 20% when the BIOS fix/patch is applied, according to benchmark data provided by TechReport on December 6, 2007. The errata reportedly relates to the TLB (translation lookaside buffer, a type of high-speed "scratch pad" for keeping crucial internal data close to the core), as well as a portion of the L2 to L3 cache data exchange. There are also reported software patches for operating systems with source code, like Linux, which include a software workaround that will negate the performance hit. The OS requires a recompile and can be deployed.

In a recent conversation with TG Daily, AMD claimed that the bug has not been observed in any production installations. It has only come up under their internal stress tests which push the cores to the limits in various operations, and it was only discovered recently. AMD believes it is highly unlikely that the specific conditions which cause the errata to surface, which is, according to AMD, a condition which ultimately causes the CPU to shutdown following an unhandled Machine Check Exception.