AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Review
Table of contents
There is nothing wrong with an incremental update—especially an update that adds performance without affecting pricing. Such is the case with AMD’s new Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, which arrived at our performance lab running at 3.4 GHz—200 MHz faster than its predecessor, the Phenom II X4 955 BE. Everything else is exactly the same as the Phenom II X4 955, reviewed back in April 2009.
So, if the latest Phenom II is predictably faster than AMD’s former flagship, why is today’s launch so significant? In short, it comes just a few weeks ahead of Intel’s upcoming LGA 1156-based P55 platform debut—an event that’ll almost certainly play a bigger role in the adoption of Nehalem-based machines than either the LGA 1366 Core i7 or Xeon 5500-series CPUs have thus 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 price points.
No doubt, those new Core i5/i7 CPUs will be faster than the Core 2 Quads they replace, and at competitive prices. Just when AMD looked like it had achieved performance parity with the top end of Intel’s Core micro-architecture, LGA 1156-based platforms seem almost certain to set the bar higher.
Thus, today’s Phenom II X4 965 BE introduction is actually a fairly important one for AMD. On one hand, it could earn the company its mainstream performance crown—at least for a few weeks. On 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 on how the upcoming Intel chips perform.
Up Against Core i5
Of course, we’re not able to publish performance numbers with the pre-production Core i5 processors currently running in the lab, so it’s hard to officially quantify how Phenom II will size up. But we can make best guesses using today’s Core i7s as rough test subjects.
You’ll find all of our usual benchmarks on the pages that follow. First, however, we wanted to set up Phenom II X4 965 BE against a hypothetical Core i5-750—a processor expected to cost less 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 pull out a single channel of memory (yielding two channels of DDR3-1333) and disable Hyper-Threading, since Core i5 won’t have 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 active. Core i7-920 only benefits from a single bin of Turbo Boost, yielding 2.8 GHz instead.
The only other platform capability setting LGA 1156 apart from LGA 1366 is the use of on-die PCI Express 2.0, which we’ve tested extensively and can say that, in single-card configurations, has almost zero impact on performance versus the X58’s chipset-based connectivity.
Latest CPU News
Latest CPU reviews
- 24/05 – Overclocking Core i7-3770K: Learning To Live With Compromise
- 22/05 – Core i5-3570K, -3550, -3550S, And -3570T: Ivy Bridge Efficiency
- 15/05 – AMD A10-4600M Review: Mobile Trinity Gets Tested
- 14/05 – Core i7-3720QM: Ivy Bridge Makes Its Mark On Mobility
- 23/04 – Intel Core i7-3770K Review: A Small Step Up From Sandy Bridge
It'd be nice to see overclocked Core 2 and i7 thown into the comparison.
AMD sucks big time even with the new processor they can't get to the performance of i7 920 !
AMD SUCKS BIG TIME even with the new processor they can't get to the performance of i7 920!
We'd be better waiting if we hadn't already got compatible hardware for sure. Although, that increase in performance doesn't really do it for me.
Maybe if my new credit card is here I'l go i5!!! lol
Phenom II is a refined core..not a completely new design. It also holds itself up against the Core 2 Quad, and combined with AMD's chipset technology (780G for example), you get a lot of bang for your buck. I don't see any Intel chipsest competing..
Good article. I see good things for AMD. even though i'm using the i7 myself but AMD is coming out strong, i have to give respect to those guys. Good chip for a beginer gamer of someone who is faithful to AMD, and is on a tight budget..cheers
Otherwise, our simulated Core i5 tests suggest that careful comparison shoppers would be better served waiting a few weeks to see if retail Core i5s can really stand up against Core 2 Quad/Phenom II processors at lower price points. Thus far, all signs point to “yes, yes it can.”
So this is a bit of free marketing for Intel's core i5 then ... despite the fact that you can't publish data due to the NDA?
Intel would be happy with that statement in an article on AMD's CPU.
They would even pay money for that kind of comment at the end of the article... I am sure.
Ch ... ching.
Reynod you are spot on!
It seems Tom's adds add unnecessary comments that leads to suspicion of unfair/underhanded advertising practices. This isn't the first time I have noticed such an article.
I remember a blatant Nvidea add not so long ago that quoted outlandishly incorrect GPU pricing to form it's summaries.
If there are dirty tricks being played, hope the EU doesn't look in your direction Tom's.
The thing is Tom's once people lose trust in you, you will never win it back!!!
I'm praying for the day the EU stomps on nVidia HARD for their endless dirty tricks. And I'm dying for the day when Toms gets raped on accomplice charges...
Funny how Toms only ever bench graphics cards on nVidia-friendly The Way It Was Meant To Be Paid titles. Also funny how Toms always benches CPUs on all half-dozen massively-multithreaded HT-friendly games in existance. Bias? Never... XD
And it's funny how all the comments, hints and suggestions to perceived and open bias at Toms have come about since the Bestofmedia takeover?
Anybody stop to think that just maybe it's the parent company forcing the reviewers' hand?
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
"Phenom II is a refined core..not a completely new design. It also holds itself up against the Core 2 Quad, and combined with AMD's chipset technology (780G for example), you get a lot of bang for your buck. I don't see any Intel chipsest competing.."
How in the hell is the phenom competing ? it had to be run at a 3.8 ghz clock speed to loose in most of the benchmarks to the 2.66 ghz I7, which can also be overclocked to 3.8 ghz if need be, and by that point would absolutely slaughter the phenom. Clock for clock there is no comparison, and any gamer should choose the intel platform if they want the ultimate in performance.