AMD's Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition

By Tom's Hardware News Team
published

Conclusion - An Ideal Upgrade CPU

AMD's Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition comes with one unbeatable advantage that no other AMD processor in recent memory has ever had. This $130 CPU sports an unlocked multiplier, which unlike that of the 6400+, is actually usable thanks to the CPU's enormous overclocking potential.

The unlocked multiplier allows the CPU to be overclocked without forcing the remaining components to operate outside their normal parameters. This means that the FSB, PCI bus and memory all run at their default frequency and voltage.

The 5000+ Black Edition is the ideal choice for users who wish to upgrade their existing AM2 systems. Thanks to its low power dissipation even when overclocked, buying a new cooling solution is unnecessary. Furthermore, the low heat generation also means the system will not become much noisier as a result of your overclocking experiments.

Join our discussion on this article!

Tom's Hardware News Team
Tom's Hardware News Team

Tom's Hardware's dedicated news crew consists of both freelancers and staff with decades of experience reporting on the latest developments in CPUs, GPUs, super computing, Raspberry Pis and more.

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • gowens
    what kind of cooling system is needed to overclock to 3.1 Ghz? I'm buying a barebones kit with this CPU but no heatsink/fan.
    Reply
  • Cursedeyes
    this article is very helpful, but my bios lets me increase the cpu voltage in increments of 5 mV up to 600mV . so how much to i out it up in order to equal 1.450 V?
    Reply
  • falchard
    1000 milliVolts = 1 volt

    1450mV is my guess.
    Reply
  • what heatsink fan was used for this? stock X2?
    Reply
  • Koshi
    This article was helpful in making my decision to buy this processor, but I have a problem when overclocking it (first time overclocking). My pheonix award bios on my m2n sli board wont let me increase the cpu voltage past 1.325, and I want to know if there's anyway I can increase it. I can only get to 14.5x multiplier at this voltage.
    Reply
  • Hi,

    Great article. I am new to OC, and have the 5000+ Black Edition and I am running it in an Asus M2N-SLI with a Zerotherm Butterfly CPU cooler. CPU according to HWMonitor, Core 0 is running at about 18C and Core 2 is at about 19 so heat shouldn't be a problem. Memory currently is Patriot 1GB PC2 5300 667mhz but in a couple days I will be adding 4 GB of OCZ SLI Ready Edition Dual Channel DDR2 800 Mhz . My question, is will the 667 Patriot memory that I currently have work if I overclock to 3.0, and would the OCZ 800 be adequate to OC to 3.2 ?

    Second, I've not done this before, from what I can gather here I can just change the multiplier in BIOS without messing with voltages if I don't go beyond 3.1 which would be achived by using a 15.5 multiplier.

    Thanks for the information here and any tips...

    **agroberts@knology.net**
    Reply
  • hellspawnpr
    I have this CPU , been very happy with it so far. I have it at 3.2ghz running smoothly. I put a gigabyte GIGABYTE GH-PDU22-SC EVR Sleeve CPU Cooler only cost 23.00 has my cpu at 32c idle
    Reply
  • Skiscola
    I can only get mine to a 14.5 multiplier I have a M2N-SLI Deluxe MOBO,CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory X2 for 4 GB, Thermaltake CL-P0075 80mm 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink. How can i get it higher without it crashing
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    And to think i passed this one up for a 5200+, for some god awful reasoning at the time. Ah, the good old days!
    Reply