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

Where does it fit in?

AMD's Phenom range of processors came about in 2007 and suffered a shaky start due to a combination of poor performance and the now-infamous TLB error. Back then, it became clear that AMD would be playing second fiddle to Intel for the foreseeable future - and that fact was compounded by the arrival of Intel's Nehalem architecture in November 2008, offering performance far in excess of anything available from AMD.

For too long, the Sunnyvale, California-based semiconductor giant has been unable to compete in terms of sheer performance. However, that hasn't stopped it from going toe-to-toe with Intel's line of Core 2 Quads in the mid-to-high-end space. Back in January '09, AMD made its lacklustre Phenom X4 and Phenom X3 processors a thing of the past with the launch of its new-and-improved 45nm Phenom II parts, codenamed Deneb.

That revised range of quad-core performance processors was then further boosted with the introduction of the AM3 form factor back in February, featuring a new memory controller supporting DDR3 memory. With the goodness of quick DDR3 RAM and a revised architecture, Phenom II finally became what it should have been back in 2007.

It's been a long ol' road, and the performance-per-pound of the Dragon platform - consisting of a Phenom II processor, AMD's 790GX chipset and Radeon HD 4870 graphics - was at last realised with the launch of the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition back in April. We found that part capable of giving Intel's high-end Core 2 Quads a run for their money, and, it's therefore no surprise to see that AMD is back once again with a higher-clocked model known as the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. Here's how it lines up in the current 45nm Phenom II range:

The parts are listed by model number, and readers should be aware that AMD's Black Edition nomenclature denotes parts that are multiplier-unlocked for easy overclocking.

Looking at the all-new Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, we see that not a whole lot has changed. Indeed, the chip, like the 955 Black Edition before it, continues to be manufactured out of GLOBALFOUNDARIES Fab. 1 in Dresden, Germany, and it features the same quantity of L2 and L3 cache, all presented in the AM3 form factor.

Two figures that have changed, however, are noteworthy. AMD's Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition features a multiplier of 17, providing an out-the-box clock speed of 3.4GHz - that makes it AMD's fastest-ever desktop processor, by a margin of 200MHz. Unfortunately, ramping up the clock speed isn't without its downsides as the 965 Black Edition ships with a TDP of 140W, making it easily the hottest 45nm Deneb part available. There's clearly not a whole lot of finesse here.

Die size remains unchanged at 258mm^2, and there are roughly 758 million transistors if you're keeping count. Packaged in a 938-pin AM3 form factor, the processor is backward compatible with AM2+, making it suitable for both DDR2 and DDR3 platforms - though, we'd be very surprised to see anyone pair such as high-end part with anything other than an AM3 board and DDR3 memory.

No physical changes, then, but let's see how it fares against AMD's Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition, Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition, Phenom II X4 920, as well as Intel's Core 2 Quad Q9650, Core 2 Quad Q9550, Core 2 Quad Q9300 and Core i7 920.