AMD's 3.2 GHz Phenom II X4 955 Dated
Looks as though AMD's Phenom II X4 955 CPU is finally getting a street date: April 20
It's no secret that AMD's quad-core AM3 Phenom II is expected to hit the market in April, and for weeks--possibly months--speculations and rumors have been tossed around like a hot potato, dictating exactly when the flagship processor will actually appear. At this moment, the April 20 date may still be only speculation, but this report seems confident in its forecast, and hopefully, it rings true.
The current reigning Phenom II X4 champion, the AM2+-based 940 released back in January, offers a nice core speed of 3 GHz, 2 MB (4x 512 KB) of L2 cache, 6 MB of L3 cache, and a TDP of 125W. However, come next month, the 955 will become the top dog of the quad-core Phenom II family, offering a faster clock speed of 3.2 GHz--a 200 MHz increase over the previous 940 processor. Additionally, the new processor will also bring to the table AM3 socket compatibility, and support for dual channel DDR2 and DDR3 memory. However, everything else--L2, L3, TDP and 45nm processing--will remain unchanged.
Originally, the 3.1 GHz Phenom II X4 950 was scheduled to hit the market in Q2 2009, however AMD scrapped the idea, and decided to go forward with the 955 version instead.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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A Stoner 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.Reply -
buzznut 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..Reply -
hellwig 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?Reply
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. -
Mucke 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.Reply -
Mucke ReplyI'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?
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).
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.
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. -
megamanx00 Sounds good to me. It's about time to upgrade my overclocked Athlon 5000 @ 3.1GHz after all.Reply