Reviews - AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition: piling on the megahertz

[HEXUS]

AMD launches its fastest-ever desktop processor, we take a look.

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[kalniel]

Good review.

What's Hexus' take on where AMD will go next? Your overclocking tests seem to indicate there's not an obvious amount of headroom for the current Phenom II line.

While Intel's 1156 socket chips might bring fantastic performance to the table they seem to have a glaring problem in lack of upgrade possibilities - AMD's standardised AM3 socket should give them a huge advantage in that respect but it's no good if we're not expecting any significant improvement at the high end until 2011.

[danroyle]

am pleased amd finally getting some decent cpu's again and each of these reviews makes me glad i bought my Q9550 as it seems to perform admirably well and was cheap too.

[UnixNerd]

The other thing that gets me is the possibility, that from your own leaked info, that the core i7 920 could be in for a price cut to £168 . At that sort of price point is there anywhere for AMD to go? They would have to be looking at a price point of around £130 for the 965 and £110 for the 955 to be even remotely competative wouldn't they?

[DeludedGuy]

The other thing that gets me is the possibility, that from your own leaked info, that the core i7 920 could be in for a price cut to £168 . At that sort of price point is there anywhere for AMD to go? They would have to be looking at a price point of around £130 for the 965 and £110 for the 955 to be even remotely competative wouldn't they?

Oh how that sounds so sweet for people upgrading in the nest few months, lol, we can dream I suppose.

[kalniel]

The other thing that gets me is the possibility, that from your own leaked info, that the core i7 920 could be in for a price cut to £168 . At that sort of price point is there anywhere for AMD to go? They would have to be looking at a price point of around £130 for the 965 and £110 for the 955 to be even remotely competative wouldn't they?

Nope, just make sure that you can buy a motherboard and RAM cheaper than for socket 1366 chips, which you can by some way.

[danroyle]

Nope, just make sure that you can buy a motherboard and RAM cheaper than for socket 1366 chips, which you can by some way.

thats exactly why i went for the q9550 i picked up 4gb cas 6 ddr3 for £60 and a msi p35 diamond for £40 delivered from dabs (b grade) cheapest core i7 board was £170ish at the time. the i7 boards are still very expensive sadly

[mercyground]

I'd rather get a quad or tri core amd than pay through the nose for the i7.

I'm currently looking at that with 4gb DDR2 or 3 depending which motherboard i go for. On one hand using a DDR2 board and ram is cheap and "disposible". On the other, its not that much more (and depending on the board sometimes cheaper) than DDR2. Ram costs is really the only problem and that has come down alot. None of this pay through the nose for 1.5v DDR3 rubbish either.

[joel_spencer]

On the gaming benchmarks quake wars @ 1680x1050, the reviewer suggests that putting the owness on the graphics card makes fps difference negligible. It should be onus, Otherwise yeah much the same conclusion I would have drawn.

[tickedon]

I would not be surprised to see the X4 965 beating some of the i3 and i5 parts. It's only slightly behind the i7, so it's not too much to ask!

[Ares_202]

Seems like a feasible option for people who cant afford the core i9's

[sammorris]

The X4 965 is a bit of a lemon imo. The 955 is much cheaper, not much slower, and uses a lot less power. Since the 955 and 965 overclock to the same level, the 955 is the better deal all round.