Is 955 BE REALLY the Phenom II to buy?

[tulx]

Hello techies!

A short question - I know it's widely assumed that Phenom II 955 BE is THE Phenom II to buy, since the 975 and 980's have the same stepping and only increased base clock and they all OC to about 4,1 GHz. But is the base clock REALLY the only difference? Higher base clock probably means that AMD managed to raise it by improving at least something. Working temperature, maybe? The cache sizes are the same. I was wondering if there might be a difference beyond the base clock that I might have overlooked.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

I'm in the same quandary, currently torn between a 955 Black and the 975 Black and as you say the only difference I can find is the starting clockspeed,
I would say to mind which stepping revision you get though, on the 955 make sure its a C3 version, bit better on the heat/power issue
Moto

 

[Emerald]

the only difference is the clock speed.

the 955 is the best bang for the buck

 

[devroz]

I have read in some reviews that they believe AMD may be using the better quality results for the higher end versions, but I don't think I have seen anything concrete or any comments from AMD on this.

I do have the 955 but I have not tried seeing how fast I can get it as it is plenty fast for everything I have needed it to do up until this point.

 

[$hawn]

get the 965 BE, guarenteed C3, u shud be better off
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Sorry, devroz wrote: I have read in some reviews that they believe AMD may be using the better quality results for the higher end versions.

Why? see my theory below, it cud be entirely wrong thoe
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The phenomII chips manufactured have to be under 125W (they'll usually keep it a lil lower than that as a safety margin) , at their rated freq, and power dissipation is roughly given by,

P=k*Freq*[voltage]^2.....where K is some constant

So if the chip works properly at say 3.7Ghz, but gives of say 130w, then they can't sell it as an x4 980. So they'll reduce the clock freq and sell it as a 965 or something, depending on what freq reduces the TDP below the max rated 125W.
This is also why the fastest chips like the 980 are costlier, because they are of better quality, and hence rarer to obtain(manufacture)

 

[jjb8675309]

my c3 955 overclocks fully stable to 4.2ghz at 1.4v, haven't tried to push it further but right now I get up to about 56C with prime 95 with my hyper 212+