AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE

Back in April, Benchmark Reviews covered the release of AMD's flagship quad-core processor, the Phenom II X4 955 BE. Nearly four months later, we have that opportunity once again. Today, we look at the new king of the mountain over at the AMD, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition processor model HDZ965FBGIBOX. Coming in at 3.4GHz, it not only bests the previous flagship model by 200Mhz, but also happens to be the highest clocked CPU on the market. In today's review, we find out just how well that exta clockspeed translates to performance.

Aside from operating frequency, the 3.4GHz Phenom II X4 965 isn't much different than its 3.2GHz counterpart. In fact, our sources at AMD confirm that both chips are binned from the same revision of silicon. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though, as this revision has already proven to be an excellent performer. You can also expect the same architectural benefits, including socket AM2-AM3 compatibility, 8MB total L2 and L3 cache, and a 128-bit DDR2-DDR3 memory controller.

At $245 MSRP, the Phenom II X4 965 BE is also shaping up to be a great value. If you recall, this is actually the same price that the X4 955 BE was introduced at back in April. Thanks to a competitive market, it looks like AMD has had to keep their prices down. We've aslo been told to expect a few bundle deals during launch that should knock the price down even more.

About Advanced Micro Devices, Inc (AMD)

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is an innovative technology company dedicated to collaborating with customers and partners to ignite the next generation of computing and graphics solutions at work, home, and play.

Over the course of AMD's three decades in business, silicon and software have become the steel and plastic of the worldwide digital economy. Technology companies have become global pacesetters, making technical advances at a prodigious rate - always driving the industry to deliver more and more, faster and faster.

However, "technology for technology's sake" is not the way we do business at AMD. Our history is marked by a commitment to innovation that's truly useful for customers - putting the real needs of people ahead of technical one-upmanship. AMD founder Jerry Sanders has always maintained that "customers should come first, at every stage of a company's activities."

We believe our company history bears that out.

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