AMD's 3.2 GHz Phenom II X4 955 Dated

I like that better, gives a much better feel for upgrading. Going from 3.0 to 3.1, not alot, but 3.0 to 3.2 feels like a better bump. I always thought that now that we are in the multi GHz range they should do most diferentiation with more than 100MHz bumps.

any idea as to est. price?

good question. Wonder if the new am3 will debut at $235 like the 940, and then modest drops along the rest of the line, Or will they price it to match say a Q9550 at $275. Assuming a similar performance..

but is it going to be black edition?

I'll stick with an AM2+ board if I upgrade in the near future even if I get a nice AM3, no need to pay DDR3 prices. A black edition would also be nice, but if there's really going to be a Phenom FX, how much longer will AMD keep releasing black editions?

I'm a little confused though. AM3 CPUs are backwards compatable with AM2 sockets (assuming BIOS support is there). Why did AMD release AM2-only Phenom IIs? With AM3 boards already on the market, it doesn't make sense to have two separate chips.

Lol, 420. Whens that x86 license expire again? XD

I'll stick with an AM2+ board if I upgrade in the near future even if I get a nice AM3, no need to pay DDR3 prices.

For Upgrading an existing PC: yes. For building a new one: no. DDR3 is already pretty close to DDR2 in price, and the lower voltage makes a real difference in the power consumption (the last benchmark I saw had a Phenom II 810 with DDR2 against the same CPU with DDR3 -- the difference was 20Watt in idle, 40Watt when used).



Rumors say that AMD had trouble making a memory controller that supports DDR2 _AND_ DDR3. But they didn't want to push back the entire generation, so they brought just DDR2 first.

At first I thought the article title ment X4 955 outdated lol.

Sounds good to me. It's about time to upgrade my overclocked Athlon 5000 @ 3.1GHz after all.

Hmmmm, I'll wait for benchmarks and price. If it performs almost just as well as the i7, but costs 20% less, I'd much rather have that lol. We'll wait an see....

Yea, this thing needs to beat an i7 920. Price is likely to be close, 20 or 30 below or so. If it can do better, then when/if Phenom II FX comes around, things will really get interesting.

Ummm, what happened to the Phenom II X4 925?

Had the same reaction - I expected an article about how the chip was obsolete based on the wording of the title!

My only problem with going i7 is the double whammy of higher priced processor and mainboard. I might have been able to eek out one costly item on my student budget, but not both.

I don't think this can directly compete with the i7 920. Considering the 940 competed with the Q9450 this should compete with the Q9550. AMD never made PII to compete with Bloomfield. And this should sell a bit cheaper since it's clocked more and consumes more power and the overclocking percentage is not as much as the Q9550(the newer socket ones). Anyways as PII 940 it should win in a few benchies....

Which benchmark did you see? Or did you mean 2 watt and 4 watt? Or probably they were using different mobos or some settings like power saving were on.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/16382/12

Nice, I might use this in a friend's build.

very nice, amd is finally punching back, maybe it's not as good as the i7 lineup now, but they aren't a bad option anymore, especially when you consider the price and the option to just drop another one in an existing am2+ board.

Let's hope they can keep this up and make a few faster ones too.

Yes, but the 940 was also an AM2+ socket CPU and was limited to DDR2. Not saying that this automatically makes the 955 able to compete with with the i7 920, however there is more to this jump then 200MHz, its also new memory and faster communication between parts. So the performance increase should be more apparent on an AM3 mobo with DDR3 then just dropping one in in place of a 940. Possible to compete with i7? I think so. Probable? Maybe not, we'll have to wait for benches.

The real question is - Am I going to sweat a 5%-10% difference in non-gaming performance when the 955 is by far fast enough to drive my 4870x2 to the performance levels I need? I, like most folk out there, don't do much video rendering and editing or much large file compression and swapping. And that I think is the only reason to go for a higher priced i7 over an 945 or 955. Everything else I do on a day to day basis is going to be either hard drive or GPU limited, not CPU.

Plus, why would I give more money to the top dog in a 2 dog fight? Competition breeds creativity and lowers prices. I and the entire PC enthusiast community would benefit from a stronger, richer AMD - so thats where I'm putting my money. And besides, once I make use of that unlocked multiplier and push the CPU to 4GHz on air, that boost the i7 920 will seem even less relevant.

But yes, I'd really like to see that fabled FX processor line return in full force. I mean, if these chips are overclocking to 4GHz on air, there is no reason that AMD can't test their chips, pick out the best ones, clock em at 3.5 or 3.6, slap an FX sticker on it and call it a day. Naturally I hope they put a little more work into it then that, but the point stands - if the CPU can overclock so easily, why not just sell a higher-clocked CPU?

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

I think we're at a place where AMD and intel should focus on improving the PC for either gaming or server purposes.

The PC today is more then powerful enough to run about any program any business would run, apart from servers with several hundreds of connections at a time, or gaming pc's which need acceleration in transfert between CPU and graphic card, memory and are in need of faster CPU/GPU s.

Many games we knew in the past would be nice to see running under a DX10 environment, with so many more effects and details as we never had before!

With the hardware capable of running even the most demanding games, and affordable within a certain budget,I think it would be the wisest to focus on those areas.
Improvements that will not really benefit either gaming or server, aren't really necessary.

Phenom II black editions are consistently clocking to 3.7 with a vid increase. This series is a winner for AMD as while not as fast as the i7 - is more bang for the buck and a lot of processor power for ~$200.

The 940 crush the Q9450.

Q9650 vs PII 940
http://foro.noticias3d.com/vbullet [...] p?t=278294

I can't wait for the release of the porcessor.
To all of the people that are asking whether or not it will beat the i7 920. Just overclock a Phenom II 940 to 3.2ghz and that should be a rough estimate.

@ A stoner

we are talking about quad cores here grandpa, that means that the 3.0 to 3.1 jump is a total increase of 400mhz

and the 3.0 to 3.2 bump is an 800mhz (ALMOST an entire GHZ) bump

so stop smoking and use your fricken brain cells smart guy

Ahem:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P3-494892461.html

feel free to pay and read the whole actual article, but the intro few paragraphs pretty much sum it up.

Stop not smoking and use your fricken brain cells.

Its only a 400mhz jump IF you are using a piece of software that perfectly utilized ALL the cores. At the moment, that is doesn't encompass most games. Naturally video encoding and mass transfer of files will benefit. But most apps use one, at most 2 cores - hence going from 3.0-3.1 would actually only be 100-200mhz increase AT BEST. Most programs that DO utilize more then one core, don't scare linearly.

So please do some research before you make an idiot of your self.

Another stoner out.

Heres a few more for you.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com [...] 1&SRETRY=0

and some more

http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/

ehh the list goes on and on.


I will concede one point however - it has also been shown to increase the probability of testicular cancer in males....but only slightly. A risk, no doubt about it, but considering all the benefits, a risk we are all willing to take.

Should have been "don't SCALE linearly", not scare.

Sooo. Looking for it at NewEgg. Where is it?

Ha ha, they were wrong. It's released the 23rd.
FAILBOAT

Dzam.

I just got a 955 and only one core is running at 1.6 GHZ, the rest are stuck at 801 mhz. Does anybody know how to resolve this? I am using AMD overdrive. I tried to set it at 3.2 through the BIOS but no post.