AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE AM3 Processor | HDZ955FBGIBOX,AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition HDZ955FBGIBOX AM3 Processor,AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition HDZ955FBGIBOX Deneb AM3 Processor Performance Test CPU Review

AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE AM3 Processor

Reviews - Featured Reviews: Processors
Written by Mathew WIlliams
Thursday, 23 April 2009
AMD Phenom II X4 955BE Following their success in the Athlon 64 era, many were surprised to the see AMD struggle with the Phenom family of processors. With the launch of the Phenom II and Dragon platform, however, AMD has made a dramatic comeback. Today, Benchmark Reviews takes a look at the latest addition to the Phenom II family, the X4 955 Black Edition. With full AM3 support and an impressive 3.2 GHz clockspeed, the X4 955 Black Edition HDZ955FBGIBOX clearly takes the lead as AMD's newest flagship processor. In today's review, we'll take a closer look at this new chip and find out how it stacks up against the competition. The launch of the Phenom II X4 955BE also marks a complete refresh of the AMD Dragon Platform. The newly released Radeon HD 4890, AM3 790 series motherboards, and this new processor combine to form a complete desktop solution. Tying all of these components together is a new software solution that also launches today: AMD OverDrive 3.0. The updated OverDrive utility now comes with a new Black Edition Memory Profile feature that allows AM3 processors to fully benefit from the enhanced bandwidth of high-end DDR3 modules. The updated Dragon Platform certainly sounds appealing and that's exactly what AMD is counting on. The problems that plagued the original Phenom took their toll and AMD needs to do everything possible to get back in the game. For the consumer, this is great news as AMD has and continues to offer an extremely good price to performance ratio on all of their products. As the benchmarks throughout this review demonstrate, the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition continues this trend. The unlocked multiplier further adds to this value and makes overclocking a breeze. 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. Phenom II X4 955BE Features The industry's first true Quad core x86 processor True quad-core and triple-core designed from the ground up for better communication between cores. BENEFIT: Cores can communicate on die rather than on package for better performance AMD64 with Direct Connect Architecture Helps improve system performance and efficiency by directly connecting the processors, the memory controller, and the I/O to the CPU. Designed to enable simultaneous 32- and 64-bit computing Integrated Memory Controller BENEFITS: Increases application performance by dramatically reducing memory latency Scales memory bandwidth and performance to match compute needs HyperTransport^TM Technology provides up to 16.0GB/s peak bandwidth per processor-reducing I/O bottlenecks Up to 37GB/s total delivered processor-to-system bandwidth (HyperTransport bus + memory bus) AMD Balanced Smart Cache Shared L3 cache (either 6MB or 4MB) 512K L2 cache per core BENEFIT: Shortened access times to the highly accessed data for better performance. AMD Wide Floating Point Accelerator 128-bit floating point unit (FPU) High performance (128bit internal data path) BENEFIT: Larger data paths and quicker floating point calculations for better performance. floating point unit per core. HyperTransport^TM technology One 16-bit link at up to 4000MT/s Up to 8.0GB/s HyperTransport^TM I/O bandwidth; Up to 16GB/s in HyperTransport Generation 3.0 mode Up to 37GB/s total delivered processor-to-system bandwidth (HyperTransport bus + memory bus) BENEFIT: Quick access times to system I/O for better performance. Integrated DRAM Controller with AMD Memory Optimizer Technology A high-bandwidth, low-latency integrated memory controller Supports PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066); PC2-6400 (DDR2-800), PC2-5300 (DDR2-667), PC2-4200 (DDR2-533) or PC2-3200 (DDR2-400) SDRAM unbuffered DIMMs - AM2+ Support for unregistered DIMMs up to PC2 8500(DDR2-1066MHz) and PC3 10600 (DDR3-1333MHz) - AM3 Up to 17.1GB/s memory bandwidth for DDR2 and up to 21GB/s memory bandwidth for DDR3 BENEFIT: Quick access to system memory for better performance. AMD Virtualization^TM (AMD-V^TM) With Rapid Virtualization Indexing Silicon feature-set enhancements designed to improve the performance, reliability, and security of existing and future virtualization environments by allowing virtualized applications with direct and rapid access to their allocated memory. BENEFIT: Helps virtualization software to run more securely and efficiently enabling a better experience when dealing with virtual systems Cool'n'Quiet^TM 3.0 technology Enhanced power management features which automatically and instantaneously adjusts performance states and features based on processor performance requirements For quieter operation and reduced power requirements BENEFIT: Enables cooler and quieter platform designs by providing extremely efficient performance and energy usage. AMD CoolCore^TM Technology Reduces processor energy consumption by turning off unused parts of the processor. For example, the memory controller can turn off the write logic when reading from memory, helping reduce system power. Works automatically without the need for drivers or BIOS enablement. Power can be switched on or off within a single clock cycle, saving energy with no impact to performance. BENEFIT: Helps users get more efficient performance by dynamically activating or turning off parts of the processor. Dual Dynamic Power Management^TM Enables more granular power management capabilities to reduce processor energy consumption. Separate power planes for cores and memory controller, for optimum power consumption and performance, creating more opportunities for power savings within the cores and memory controller. BENEFIT: Helps improve platform efficiency by providing on demand memory performance while still allowing for decreased system power consumption HDZ955FBGIBOX Specifications L1 Cache Sizes: 64K of L1 instruction and 64K of L1 data cache per core (512KB total L1 per processor) L2 Cache Sizes: 512KB of L2 data cache per core (2MB total L2 per processor) L3 Cache Size: 6MB (shared) Total Cache (L2+L3): 8MB Memory Controller Type: Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller * Memory Controller Speed: Up to 2.0GHz with Dual Dynamic Power Management Types of Memory Supported: Unregistered DIMMs up to PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066MHz) -AND- PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333MHz) HyperTransport 3.0 Specification: One 16-bit/16-bit link @ up to 4.0GHz full duplex (2.0GHz x2) Total Processor-to-System Bandwidth: Up to 37.3GB/s total bandwidth [Up to 21.3 GB/s memory bandwidth (DDR3-1333) + 16.0GB/s (HT3)] Up to 33.1GB/s total bandwidth [Up to 17.1 GB/s memory bandwidth (DDR2-1066) + 16.0GB/s (HT3)] Packaging: Socket AM3 938-pin organic micro pin grid array (micro-PGA) Fab location: GLOBALFOUNDARIES Fab 1 module 1 in Dresden, Germany (formerly AMD Fab 36) Process Technology: 45-nanometer DSL SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology Approximate Die Size: 258 mm2 Approximate Transistor count: ~ 758 million Max Temp: 62o Celsius Nominal Voltage: 0.875-1.5V Max TDP: 125 Watts MSRP: $245 Closer Look: Phenom II X4 955BE Taken at face value, the 200 MHz speed bump offered by the Phenom II X4 955BE over the previous 3.0 GHz X4 940BE flagship processor may not seem like much cause to celebrate. After all, with a Black Edition processor, a simple change in multiplier can easily accomplish this in a matter of seconds. However, the major difference between these two chips is not the frequency, but the memory controller. While the X4 940BE is limited to the socket AM2+ DDR2 platform, the X4 955BE has full AM3 and DDR3 support. Paired with a good motherboard and RAM, the enhanced bandwidth of DDR3 memory should allow for a considerable increase in performance. Along with AM3 support comes a 200 MHz increase in the HyperTransport bus. Unchanged, however, is the amount of cache. Each core gets 64 KB of L1 instruction cache, 64 KB of L1 data cache, and 512 KB of L2 cache. To top things off, all four cores share a 6 MB L3 cache. The memory controller can function as two 64-bit channels or one 128-bit channel in ganged mode and supports both DDR2 and DDR3. Official specifications from AMD site support for up to DDR3-1333, however, with an appropriate motherboard the Phenom II X4 955 can support well past that. Of course, to really get the most from high bandwidth RAM, a bit of overclocking is necessary. As this is a Black Edition processor, overclocking via AMD's OverDrive 3.0 utility was easy. Given time restraints, I wasn't able to push the Phenom II X4 955 to it's limits. However, by upping a few voltages and increasing the multipliers, I was able to achieve a decent overclock in only a matter of minutes. The end result was 2800 MHz for the northbridge (MC + L3 Cache), 2600 MHz for the HyperTransport bus, and 3800 MHz for all four cores. The increased core speed has obvious benefits, but the northbridge itself is an important factor as well. As you'll see in the benchmark sections to follow, when paired with high-end DDR3-1600, the overclocked memory controller leads to some serious bandwidth. Testing & Results Before I begin any benchmarking or overclocking, I thoroughly stress the CPU and memory by running Prime95 on all available cores for 12 hours. If no errors are found, I move on to a gaming stress test. To do this, I use Prime95 again to stress the processor, while running an instance of FurMark's stability test on top of this. If the computer survives this test for 2 hours without lockup or corruption, I consider it to be stable and ready for overclocking. After achieving what I feel is stable overclock, I run to these tests again for certainty. The goal of this stress testing is to ensure the clock speeds and settings are stable before performing any benchmarks. After all, what good are performance measures if the system cannot reliably produce them. Once the hardware is prepared, we begin our testing. Each benchmark test program begins after a system restart, and the very first result for every test will be ignored since it often only caches the test. This process proved extremely important in the World in Conflict and Supreme Commander benchmarks, as the first run served to cache maps allowing subsequent tests to perform much better than the first. Each test is completed five times, with the average results displayed in our article. For our Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition review, the following test systems and comparison processors will be used. While we certainly don't expect all of the processors to match the performance of the X4 955, including a variety of mainstream and enthusiast hardware allows us to analyze important price per performance considerations. For this particular review, we'll focus on the Intel Q9450 as the X4 955's nearest competitor. At 2.66 GHz, it runs a bit slower than the 3.2 GHz clocked X4 955, however, the similar price makes it ideal for comparison. Intel LGA775 Test System Motherboard:Asus P5Q3 System Memory: 2x2GB OCZ Platinum DDR3 (1333MHz@6-6-6-20 & 1066MHz@6-6-6-15) Video:ASUS EAH4870 DK TOP Disk Drive: Seagate ST380815AS 80GB Optical Drive: LITE-ON iHAS122-04 DVD Burner PSU: Corsair TX850W Enclosure:Antec P183 Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP3 AMD Socket AM3 Test System Motherboard: Asus M4A79T Deluxe System Memory: 2x2GB OCZ Platinum DDR3 (1600MHz@7-7-7-24) Video:ASUS EAH4870 DK TOP Disk Drive: Seagate ST380815AS 80GB Optical Drive: LITE-ON iHAS122-04 DVD Burner PSU: Corsair TX850W Enclosure:Antec P183 Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP3 AMD Socket AM2/AM2+ Test System Motherboard: Asus M3A78-EM System Memory: 2x2GB Corsair XMS2 DHX DDR2 (800MHz@4-4-4-12) Video:ASUS EAH4870 DK TOP Disk Drive: Seagate ST380815AS 80GB Optical Drive: LITE-ON iHAS122-04 DVD Burner PSU: Corsair TX850W Enclosure:Antec P183 Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP3 Benchmark Applications Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark EVEREST Ultimate Edition v5.01 by Lavalys Crysis Benchmark Tool Passmark PerformanceTest PCMark05 v1.2.0 by Futurmark Corporation SPECviewperf v10.0 by Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation Processors Tested AMD Athlon X2 4850e AMD Phenom II X4 955 Intel Core 2 Due E7400 Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Overclocked Settings AMD Phenom II X4 955 Reference Clock: 200 MHz HyperTransport: 2600MHz (13x200MHz) Northbridge: 2800MHz (14x200MHz) Processor Cores: 3800MHz (19x200MHz) Devil May Cry 4 Gaming Devil May Cry 4 is one of the newest additions to Benchmark Reviews' testing suite. Fortunately for us, Capcom recognized the community's interest in hardware testing and included a built in benchmarking tool with this game. In fact, it is even included it in the demo. The benchmarking tool runs through four different scene, all of which I highly recommend watching. However, for the purposes of our review, we only report the scores of the most challenging tests: scenes 2 and 4. When testing a CPU, the settings we choose are a bit different than a typical video card review. As you'll see in the charts below, modern games can easily max out the processing abilities of the video card and mask any differences between the CPUs. For this reason, we generally start at low resolutions and quality settings and slowly ramp them up until we hit the limit of the video card. This allows us to quickly distinguish differences between CPUs and identify any other limiting hardware. In the first test, it's clear that the video card is not being taxed too heavily and the framerates shown are a result of CPU processing limitations. At these settings, the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition offers about a 2-6% advantage over the Intel Q9450. As expected, overclocking the X4 955 produced a considerable jump in framerates and offers the best performance out of the processors tested. After increasing resolution and quality settings, things look quite a bit different. With the exception of the Athlon X2 4850e, all of the processors are within about 3% of each other. This suggests that the system is beginning to become limited by the processing ability of the video card and not the processor itself. One last increase in resolution and quality, along with some post-processing, clearly shows the limitations of our HD 4870 video card. Again, with the exception of the 4850e, all of the processors produce the same results. The 4850e is significant, however, in that it demonstrates the importance of CPU selection when running higher end video cards. If you want your video card to perform at its maximum, you need a good CPU to support it. The Phenom II X4 955BE is an excellent choice, but for this test, the two Intel processors can hold their own as well. EVEREST Benchmark Tests EVEREST Ultimate Edition is an industry leading system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. CPU, FPU and memory benchmarks are available to measure the actual system performance and compare it to previous states or other systems. Furthermore, complete software, operating system and security information makes EVEREST Ultimate Edition a comprehensive system diagnostics tool that offers a total of 100 pages of information about your PC. The first benchmarks used in our testbed: Queen, Photoworxx, ZLib, and AES, all rely on basic x86 instructions, and consume very low system memory while also being aware of HyperThreading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. Given the interest surrounding the new Socket AM3 DDR3 motherboards, we've also decided to include EVEREST's memory benchmarks and round things out with some floating point tests. The first test, Queen, attempts to measure branch prediction and mismatch penalties. Here we can see that the Intel Q9450 and Phenom II X4 955 are essentially matched. Of course, with some overclocking, the X4 955 clearly pulls ahead. In the image processing simulation, PhotoWorxx, the difference is much more dramatic. The stock X4 955 bests the Q9450 by nearly 40% and with some overclocking this jumps to over 60%. The third integer benchmark, ZLib, tests file compression performance and makes use of both the processor and the memory subsystem. Once again, the stock Phenom II X4 955 comes out on top with a 22% performance advantage over the Q9450, while overclocking yields another 20% gain. The trend continues into the AES test, which measures data encryption performance. Here we see a 16% improvement versus the Q9450. Moving on to the EVEREST memory benchmarks, we see some interesting results. In all three tests, the X2 4850e actually pulls ahead of the Intel E7400, while the X4 955 shows varied performance. In the read and copy tests, the X4 955 easily outperforms the other processors, but in the write test it takes third place. This is characteristic of the Phenom and Phenom II families and as the results suggest, is easily remedied by overclocking the memory controller. The floating point tests round out the EVEREST section. As the name suggests, these benchmarks focus on floating point performance as opposed to integer performance, which the previous tests measured. First up is the single precision Julia test. The Intel Q9450 clearly has the advantage here. However, as we move on to the double precision Mandel test and extended precision Sin Julia test, the X4 955 pulls back in front. Crysis Gaming Crysis uses a new graphics engine: the CryENGINE2, which is the successor to Far Cry's CryENGINE. CryENGINE2 is among the first engines to use the Direct3D 10 (DirectX10) framework of Windows Vista, but can also run using DirectX9, both on Vista and Windows XP. Roy Taylor, Vice President of Content Relations at NVIDIA, has spoken on the subject of the engine's complexity, stating that Crysis has over a million lines of code, 1GB of texture data, and 85,000 shaders. To get the most out of modern multicore processor architectures, CPU intensive subsystems of CryENGINE 2 such as physics, networking and sound, have been re-written to support multi-threading. Crysis offers an in-game benchmark tool, which is similar to World in Conflict. This short test does place some high amounts of stress on a graphics card, since there are so many landscape features rendered. For benchmarking purposes, Crysis can mean trouble as it places a high demand on both GPU and CPU resources. Benchmark Reviews uses the Crysis Benchmark Tool by Mad Boris to test frame rates in batches, which allows the results of many tests to be averaged. Similar to the Devil Mary Cry 4 gaming benchmarks, we will start testing Crysis at lower settings to reduce the impact of GPU limitations. From there, we'll slowly increase resolution and quality settings until we reach the limit of our HD 4870. Just as we saw in the Devil May Cry benchmarking, the low resolution and quality of the first test reveals performance differences between the processors. The Intel Q9450 and Phenom II X4 955 are tied, while the overclocked X4 955 offers nearly double the framerate of the Athlon X2 4850e. An increase in resolution and quality tightens things up a bit. The X2 4850e is clearly lagging behind, but the other processors are all within about 10% of each other. The higher framerates of the overclocked X4 955, however, show that we haven't quite hit the GPU wall yet. It's in the third and final Crysis test that we find the GPU limitation. The Intel E7400, Intel Q9450, and Phenom II X4 955 are tied up with the overclocked X4 955 offering a negligible 1 fps more. The X2 4850e manages a decent framerate as well, but is clearly limiting the HD 4870 in our test system. Passmark PerformanceTest PassMark PerformanceTest is a PC hardware benchmark utility that allows a user to quickly assess the performance of their computer and compare it to a number of standard 'baseline' computer systems. The Passmark PerformanceTest CPU tests all benchmark the mathematical operations, compression, encryption, SSE, and 3DNow! instructions of modern processors. In our tests there were several areas of concentration for each benchmark, which are combined into one compound score. This score is referred to as the CPU Mark, and is a composite of the following tests: Integer Math, Floating Point Math, Find Prime Numbers, SSE/3DNow!, Compression, Encryption, Image Rotation, and String Sorting. For this review, we've also decided to run the memory benchmark, which results in a composite score based on the following tests: small block allocation, cached read, uncached read, write performance, and large block allocation. The results of the Passmark PerformanceTest paint a very different picture than we've seen so far. In both the CPU and memory tests, the Q9450 has a clear lead over the stock Phenom II X4 955, with the overclocked X4 955 barely catching up. My guess is the discrepancy is related to how Passmark calculates the composite scores. For example, the raw scores from the Everest tests suggest that the Q9450 does better in single precision floating point tests and tends to have higher memory write bandwidth. If the Passmark tests emphasis these abilities, then it makes sense that the Q9450 would have an advantage in the composite scores. To get a second opinion, we'll check these results against another synthetic benchmark suite: PCMark05. PCMark05 Benchmark Tests Using synthetic benchmarks to compare one product to another has some distinct advantages when testing similar hardware, yet I have never found myself completely satisfied by the process. I have come to understand that they're important for comparing "apples to apples", and that the results are usually very consistent. But as with any synthetic benchmark, the numbers can often mean very little more than just numbers. We don't take a high score on a synthetic benchmark to mean that a product will/should perform well, and neither should you. The difference between projected performance and actual performance is the difference between fire and the fire-fly. PCMark is a series of computer benchmark tools developed by Futuremark. The tools are designed to test the performance of the user's CPU, read/write speeds of RAM and hard drives. We have used these tests to simulate a battery of applications and tasks, which will produce results we can compare to other systems using similar hardware. In contrast to Passmark, here we can see the Phenom II X4 955 with roughly a 10% lead over the Intel Q9450 in both the overall and CPU composite scores. As expected, the overclocked X4 955 does even better. The overall scores for all of the processors, however, are a bit low. I attribute this to low-end 80GB hard drive used in the test system. Fortunately, the same hard drive was used each time, which should prevent any bias. The CPU score provided by PCMark05 is actually a composite of many different subtests. One of them, the audio compression tests, is of particular interest as it is single-threaded. This allows us to compare the dual and quad core processors on an equal playing field. Here we can see the Intel E7400 and Phenom II X4 955 are nearly tied. At 2.8GHz, the E7400 is more efficient at this test, but the X4 955 makes up for it with a higher clock speed. Moving on to the memory benchmark, the Intel Q9450 and the X4 955 are almost identical. However, the higher memory bandwidth of the overclocked X4 955 clearly takes the lead. SPECperfview CATIA Tests SPECviewperf is a portable OpenGL performance benchmark program written in C. It was developed by IBM. Later updates and significant contributions were made by SGI, Digital (Compaq, HP), 3Dlabs (Creative Labs) and other SPECopc project group members. SPECviewperf provides a vast amount of flexibility in benchmarking OpenGL performance. Currently, the program runs on most implementations of UNIX, Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Linux. SPECviewperf parses command lines and data files, sets the rendering state, and converts data sets to a format that can be traversed using OpenGL rendering calls. It renders the data set for a pre-specified amount of time or number of frames with animation between frames. Finally, it outputs the results. SPECviewperf reports performance in frames per second. Other information about the system under test - all the rendering states, the time to build display lists (if applicable), and the data set used - are also output in a standardized report. A "benchmark" using SPECviewperf is really a single invocation of SPECviewperf with command-line options telling the SPECviewperf program which data set to read in, which texture file to use, what OpenGL primitive to use to render the data set, which attributes to apply and how frequently, whether or not to use display lists, and so on. One quickly realizes that there are an infinite number of SPECviewperf "benchmarks" (an infinite number of data sets multiplied by an almost infinite number of command-line states). The results of the CATIA test are consistent with what we've seen so far. The Intel Q9450 and Phenom II X4 955 are essentially matched and, as the benchmark does not make use of multiple cores, the E7400 is right up there as well. Only the X2 4850e seems to do poorly, while the overclocked X4 955 takes the crown. In fairness, the other processors can be overclocked as well, but one of the benefits of the X4 955 Black Edition is the ease with which this can be done. AMD Dragon Final Thoughts If you peered inside my computer a few years ago, you'd have found an AMD Athlon 64 processor sitting at its core. Then the Intel Core 2 series came out and I eventually upgraded to a Core 2 Quad. I'm not biased toward either company. I simply do the research and find out what fits my needs. At the time, AMD just did not have a competitive offering in the quad core segment. With the Phenom II family, though, it looks like that has finally changed. In most benchmarks the Phenom II x4 955BE surpassed the Intel Q9450 and although we did not cover it in this review, it should put up a decent fight against the Core i7 920 as well. While some might say its too late, I tend to disagree. Yes, Intel rolled out its new Core i7 platform, but the costs associated with it will keep it in the enthusiast segment for now. Even Intel admits that it only makes up a small portion of its total sales. With the economy in a recession and consumers more conservative in their spending, the sales are going to go to whoever offers the best performance for the dollar. This is where AMD shines and at an MSRP of $245, the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition has quite a bit to offer for the price, as does the rest of the Phenom II line. One other thing AMD has going for them is their ability to offer a complete desktop solution, including high-end discrete graphics. No other manufacturer can make this claim. (Although I'm sure they're working hard at it!) For the time being, however, AMD's Dragon Platform is one of a kind and with this refresh it's gotten even better. The newly released Radeon HD 4890 and 790 series AM3 DDR3 motherboards are a perfect complement to the Phenom II family. Add to that great software support and you've got a very good system on your hands without having to break the bank. Phenom II X4 955BE Conclusion While the X4 955 Black Edition did not make it in time for the initial Phenom II launch, it's definitely a welcome addition. The new chip rounds out the Dragon Platform refresh and can now take its place as AMD's new flagship processor. In addition to the 200 MHz increase over the X4 940BE, the new X4 955 also brings full AM3 and DDR3 support. Paired with a good AM3 motherboard and high bandwidth DDR3 RAM, the X4 955 outperformed the Intel Q9450 and should prove a worthy competitor for the Core i7 920 as well. As with the other Phenom II processors, the X4 955 Black Edition will be available as a retail processor in a box (PIB). Our test sample came without a heatsink and fan, however, as with all other AMD retail processors, an adequate HSF will be included. Of course, if you plan to do any overclocking, a good aftermarket heatsink is highly recommended. Fortunately, preliminary testing has shown the Phenom II processors free of the bugs that plagued previous processors. The X4 955 also stood up well to the abuse I threw at it during overclocking. It took the increase voltages and frequencies without breaking a sweat. Still, if longevity is a major concern, I recommend running it at stock values. If you do plan to overclock, AMD's new OverDrive 3.0 software is a great improvement over past versions and adds a certain level of convenience. With it, I was able to overclock the processor cores and memory controller by a considerable amount in only a few minutes. As of launch day, 24 April 2009, the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor is available at newegg.com for $245 shipped. At that price, it sits just under Intel's Core 2 Quad Q9550 and Core i7 920 processors, while offering similar levels of performance. Once again, it looks like AMD is the price/performance leader. Pros: + Highest Phenom II clock speed yet + AM3 & DDR3 support + Unlocked multiplier + 8MB of total cache + AMD OverDrive 3.0 + Excellent price/performance Cons: - None Ratings: Performance: 9.25 Construction: 9.25 Functionality: 9.00 Overclock: 9.25 Value: 8.75 Final Score: 9.1 out of 10. Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award. Questions? Comments? Benchmark Reviews really wants your feedback. We invite you to leave your remarks in our Discussion Forum.