While Intel has the performance end of the CPU market sewn up, AMD has been looking out for the little guy, focussing squarely on the mainstream market and cheap chips with competitive processing chops.

The Sandy Bridge family might be your go-to guys at the moment for CPU upgrades thanks to Quick Sync and Turbo Boost technologies, but if every penny counts, AMD’s Phenom II chips squeeze every drop of performance out of a middling budget.

The compromise though is some architecture that’s getting rather long in the tooth. The X4 980 Black Edition is no exception.

Pound for pound, it delivers excellent performance. HyperThreading though is off the menu on the AMD side so you’re relying on four threads and four cores to slice through processing tasks. How much of a problem that is depends on your CPU’s workload – video encoding and design apps make good use of multi-threaded processors, and although games have been slow off the mark, we’ve seen some big titles recently that do work with multiple cores and threads to speed up rendering tasks.

That X4 architecture’s a bit old now – it was after all AMD’s first quad-core architecture. Intel’s 32nm chips are superior in a straight fight, but with the X4 980 BE you still get 6MB of L3 cache and an out-of-the-box clockspeed of 3.7GHz – AMD’s fastest ever quad-core.

But of course, it isn’t a straight fight. At £140, the ‘enthusiast’ X4 980 is priced against Intel’s entry-level Sandy Bridge chip, the i5 2400. That means it has a 500MHz faster clockspeed, but doesn’t have the Turbo Boost and Quick Sync chops of the i5. A stalemate, roughly.

That double-edged sword of older technology gives the AMD chip another selling point though. It’s an easy upgrade. Any Socket AM3 motherboard will support it, so you can reinvigorate two-year-old machines with this chip. It’s certainly an easier, and cheaper, upgrade than the jump to Sandy Bridge.

Benchmarks

Rendering performance
Cinebench R10: Seconds: Quicker is better
Phenom II X4 980 BE (Stock): 59
Phenom II X4 980 BE (OC’d): 51
Phenom II X4 975 (Stock): 60
Phenom II X4 975 (OC’d): 51
Phenom II X6 1090T (Stock): 47
Phenom II X6 1090T (OC’d): 39

Encoding performance
X264 HD v2: Frames per second: Higher is better
Phenom II X4 980 BE (Stock): 20
Phenom II X4 980 BE (OC’d): 23
Phenom II X4 975 (Stock): 19
Phenom II X4 975 (OC’d): 21
Phenom II X6 1090T (Stock): 26
Phenom II X6 1090T (OC’d): 32

DX11 gaming performance
Just Cause 2: Frames per second: Higher is better
Phenom II X4 980 BE (Stock): 47.93
Phenom II X4 980 BE (OC’d): 52.41
Phenom II X4 975 (Stock): 48.98
Phenom II X4 975 (OC’d): 51.34
Phenom II X6 1090T (Stock): 45.58
Phenom II X6 1090T (OC’d): 44.89

Enemies within

Here’s where things get weird though – it’s not Intel that’s muscling the X4 980 BE out of the market… it’s AMD itself.

Its focus on the sub-£200 CPU market has led to a product range that caters for literally every budget. Can’t go a penny over £140? X4 980 it is. Won’t budge an inch on £135? X4 975 then. In fact, the range is so overpopulated that some CPUs start pushing out others.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet then the Phenom II X6 1090T. It’s a six-core, 3.2GHz brute that’s also happy in any AM3 board. It shreds the X4 980 Black Edition to bits in processing tasks… and incredibly it’s £15 cheaper.

While the X4 can’t live with the X6 in video encoding, it does still have the edge in gaming thanks to that faster clockspeed. What’s more, they both overclock well – topping 4GHz on air. So which to buy?

We’re back to multi-core support again. If you’re happy getting the most out of a single core in your applications, the X4 980 Black Edition is looking good. As games step up their multicore support though, the X6 has the potential to blitz the 980 for less cash.

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This new hex-core chip is symptomatic of AMD’s current predicament: that its most expensive PC processors sell for barely one-third the price of Intel’s.

And that’s not a situation the new AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition is going to change – despite the fact that it’s officially AMD’s fastest and most expensive chip.

With a retail sticker around £215, the AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition is priced on a par with the very cheapest of Intel’s Core i7 processors such as the Intel Core i7 870. Nevertheless, it serves up six execution cores to the 870′s four. Six-core Intel CPUs are far more expensive, starting around £700.

Then again, Intel’s cores do much more work per cycle. Until it releases the long awaited Bulldozer CPU architecture, AMD needs to sell more cores for less cash. In the meantime, this revised six-core Phenom II X6 raises AMD’s game incrementally with an increase in clockspeed from 3.2GHz to 3.3GHz.

For the most part, the AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition is not a new processor. It’s based on AMD’s increasingly familiar six-core Thuban die, a chip that can trace its roots directly back to the AMD Hammer CPU architecture first seen in 2003. Thus, it’s a 45nm CPU with 512k cache per core and a further 6MB of shared cache memory.

As with all existing desktop AMD chips, it drops into the AM3 socket and supports DDR3 memory. In fact, the only significant difference compared to AMD’s previous range topper, the Phenom II X6 1090T, is operating frequency. The new chip runs at 3.3GHz, just 100MHz more than the old 1090T.

Courtesy of AMD’s Intel-aping Turbo feature, up to three cores can run at 3.7GHz. If that seems disappointing, it’s worth remembering that small increases in operating frequency can also come with a big boost in overclocking headroom.

Here’s hoping

A brief glance at stock clock performance brings no surprises. AMD has finessed the new 1100T’s pricing carefully and it matches up well with the Intel Core i7 870 in multithreaded benchmarks such as video encoding and professional 3D rendering. There’s really nothing to choose between them.

However, the World in Conflict game benchmark exposes the Phenom’s weak per-core performance. Gamers looking for the best frame rates still need to look to Intel at this price point. As for overclocking, the new 1100T is slightly disappointing and fails to match the 4GHz maximum frequency we managed with the older 1090T model.

Mileages inevitably vary from chip to chip, but the 3.8GHz result suggests the 1100T is more a rebadge than a respin. Like all of AMD’s six-core Thuban chips, the Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition gives you a lot of cores for not much cash. The result is excellent multithreaded throughput, with slightly ropey comparative gaming performance.

AMD’s CPU architecture really is getting ancient and it certainly shows in some benchmarks. An Intel chip with lower clocks and fewer cores is often faster, and sadly for AMD, that’s still where the smart money’s going.

Benchmarks

Professional rendering performance
Cinebench R10 – Seconds: Faster is better

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE: 47s
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE: 47s
Intel Core i7 870: 48s

Video encoding performance
x264 HD – Frames per second: Higher is better

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE: 27fps
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE: 26fps
Intel Core i7 870: 27fps

Gaming performance
World in Conflict – Frames per second: Higher is better

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE: 61fps
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE: 59fps
Intel Core i7 870: 81fps

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AMD’s six-core Thuban processor has been a TechRadar favourite since launch back in April. But with just two Phenom II X6 models on offer, it wasn’t exactly the widest range of chips.

Enter, therefore, the new AMD Phenom II X6 1075T. At 3.0GHz, it slots in neatly between the 2.8GHz Phenom II X6 1055T and the flagship 3.2GHz Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition. Price wise, it’s very much a tweener, too. However, because it’s not a Black Edition chip, it lacks an unlocked multiplier, making it less friendly for overclocking than the 1090T Black Edition.

Therein lies the challenge for the new Phenom II X6 1075T. The faster, unlocked Black Edition chip is yours for just £17 extra at the time of writing. As for the Intel alternative, the choice is between the cheaper Core i5-760 with its unassailable gaming grunt and the pricier but all-round quicker Core i7-860.

In technological terms, there’s nothing new about the AMD Phenom II X6 1075T. It’s based on precisely the same 45nm Thuban core as previous Phenom II X6 processors.

But don’t go thinking that makes it altogether ancient. The Thuban core came out in April. Currently, and is as good as it gets from AMD. That means a monolithic six-core chip with 512k cache per core and a 6MB L3 shared cache pool. In 1075T trim, it clocks in at 3.0GHz as standard and with a maximum theoretical speed of 3.5GHz thanks to AMD’s Turbo Core technology.

In other words, Thuban packs an impressive combination of clockspeed and core count. The only snag is that the cores themselves are based on AMD’s positively pensionable Hammer architecture from around 2003. Chips based on AMD’s all new Bulldozer architecture won’t appear until late next year.

In the mean time, the Phenom II X6 1075T still makes a strong argument for itself when it comes to multi-threaded applications. The cores might be old. But when there’s six of them the result is plenty of parallelised punch. The 1075T is typically much quicker than Intel’s Core i5 760 and AMD’s top quad, the Phenom II X4 970, in highly threaded applications such as media encoding and image rendering.

That said, the quad-core Core i7 860 has its measure thanks in part to Intel’s clever HyperThreading. Games, of course, don’t tend to scale terribly well across multiple cores. Predictably, therefore, in a CPU-intensive title such as World in Conflict, the 1075T is slower than both the Intel Core i5 760 and AMD’s own Phenom II X4 970.

In the overclocking stakes, the 1075T performs well. 3.9GHz isn’t far off the 4.1GHz we achieved with our unlocked 1090T chip.

We liked

Six cores and 3GHz is impressive at any price. For under £200 it makes for a very good deal indeed. In fact, the new Phenom II X6 1075T is probably the best sub-£200 chip on the market when it comes to highly threaded apps. It also overclocks well for a six-core CPU.

We disliked

AMD’s Hammer architecture is getting on. There’s no hiding that, no matter how many cores AMD throws at the problem. Consequently, any application that relies heavily on the performance of individual cores, including games, tends to suffer. Also worth noting that the unlocked 1090T chip is only slightly pricier.

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By now, we were hoping to able to get our hands on AMD’s new Bulldozer archtecture processors, but there’s still no sign of them, so instead we back with the familiar Phenom II theme. Give it up for the new AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition.

Based on the 45nm Deneb core that’s being doing duty in quad-core Phenom II chips for nearly two years, the AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition sports a heady stock clockspeed of 3.5GHz. Yup, that’s precisely 100MHz or three per cent faster than the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, previously the fastest X4 model.

This kind of incremental upgrade is symptomatic of an ageing processor architecture on it last legs. But while Bulldozer can’t come soon enough, there’s no reason why the 970 shouldn’t be an attractive CPU. It all comes down to pricing and positioning. At £140, the 970 squares up directly against Intel’s Core i5 760. Game on.

With so many CPU models on offer from AMD and Intel, it’s not always obvious where any given chip lines up. In the case of the AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition, however, its main task is very clear. It must beat Intel’s Core i5-760.

More accurately, it probably only needs to match the 760. The two chips both sell for around £140. However, thanks to typically lower motherboard prices, the overall platform cost is lower if you go with AMD. In that more precise context, how does the 970 stack up?

Initial impressions in multi-threaded benchmarks are good. The Phenom II X4 970′s healthy 3.5GHz clockspeed and quad-core layout motors through the x264 HD video encoding test in 19.4fps, just a whisker slower than the Core i5 760′s 19.7fps result.

It’s a similar story in Cinebench R10. One minute and one second for the Phenom II plays 59 seconds for the Core i5. Shift the focus to gaming, however, and the 970 begins to struggle. World in Conflict is a particularly demanding game for CPUs and it duly exposes Phenom’s weakness. The Core i5 is nearly 20 per cent quicker, despite a large clockspeed disadvantage.

Speaking of clockspeeds, the 970′s impressive stock frequency of 3.5GHz is actually its undoing when it comes to overclocking. The Phenom II architecture generally hits the wall at 4GHz, regardless of model and the 970 is no different. The same applies to Intel’s Core i5 and Core i7 chips. However, clocked at 2.8GHz, the Core i5-760 has much more headroom to play with.

We liked

AMD often has to balance value and upgradeability against raw performance when competing with Intel processors. The Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition takes those traditional AMD advantages and adds an impressive stock clockspeed of 3.5GHz. The result is competitive multi-threaded performance and no excuses.

We disliked

While high clocks and four cores will inevitably deliver plenty of parallelised punch, the Phenom II X4 970′s ageing architecture is exposed by applications that rely on strong single-core performance. What’s more, the 3.5GHz stock clockspeed doesn’t leave much room for overclocking.

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AMD has been prolific lately and the next in its line to fall under our spotlight is the dual-core Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition.

As a result of its labours, AMD certainly has a lot of flavours of processor on the market these days, but as a gamer on a budget do you really need anything with more than two cores yet? There’s still a dearth of multithreaded titles out there really taking advantage of the hex-core marvels AMD has recently launched, so you could be forgiven for sacrificing cores for cash.

The lads and lasses at AMD obviously understand that too, since the company’s bolstering its dual-core lineup with another Black Edition CPU, now hitting the 3.3GHz mark. We’ve already seen the Phenom II X2 550 and 555 chips, which managed 3.1GHz and 3.2GHz respectively.

Quite why we need another CPU with such a small incremental increase is rather beyond us. Sure it’s a Black Edition, with all the unlocked multiplier joy that entails, but then so was the 3.1GHz 550. Why push it further?

There’s practically zero difference in performance terms between the two low-end Black Edition Phenom IIs. That’s not surprising, since there’s also little difference between the two architectures. The extra megahertz don’t really give you anything but a small increase in the video encoding score – a score that’s easily bettered by the quad-core Athlon II X4 620.

Video encoding performance
X264 v3 – FPS: higher is better
Phenom II 560BE – 10.9
Phenom II 550BE – 10.4

CPU rendering performance
Cinebench R11.5 – Index: bigger is better
Phenom II 560BE – 1.89
Phenom II 550BE – 1.89

DX10 gaming performance
Just Cause 2 – FPS: higher is better
Phenom II 560BE – 45
Phenom II 550BE – 45

The budget end of the AMD processor spectrum is a tricky one to negotiate – there are a host of CPUs on offer for incredibly low prices.

The Athlon II X4 620 is one of the cheapest quad-core processors you’ll ever see and it’s definitely no slouch at 2.9GHz. For some decent multithreaded application performance, or video tweakery, then the quad is always going to prove a boon over the more remedial dualies.

That said, the lack of decent cache levels means it’s not going to give you any joy in games, which is where the dual-core Phenom IIs really take over. They also give you rather stellar overclocking performance too.

Then there’s the looming spectre of AMD’s core unlocking feature, although that increasingly is looking redundant in the latest chip samples we’ve had a play with. One of our 550s went all the way and unlocked two extra cores giving us a bargainous quad-core, but the other stubbornly refused to. The same happened here with our 560 sample – it just wouldn’t boot with any extra cores unlocked.

So what do you really get for your extra cash if you pick up the 560 over the Phenom II X2 550? Honestly, very little. Despite the new stepping, there’s no change in the power rating of 80W and we could garner no extra overclocking performance out of it either. Both CPUs would happily hit 4GHz on air, but try as we might we couldn’t get a stable clock any higher than that.

At £65, then, the 550 Black Edition looks like a far better bet for those after a budget gaming setup, and that’s easily achievable when twinned with a bargain AMD motherboard. You can also drop more on the motherboard with a view to upgrading your CPU if and when you can afford it thanks to AMD’s single-socket platform.

Which leaves the Phenom II X2 560 a rather unnecessary addition to AMD’s CPU lineup, lacking the multithreaded performance of chips with more cores or any extra overclocking headroom.

We liked
The Phenom II X2 560 is still able to hit 4GHz on air-cooling alone, as long as you’ve got a decent cooler, and the gaming performance isn’t bad for a cheap chip either.

We disliked
The fact that there’s little tangible difference between this newer chip revision and the cheaper dual-core 550 Black Edition makes this processor practically irrelevant.

Verdict
An unnecessary addition to the low-end Phenom II range.

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How much are you willing to pay for improved power consumption and lower thermals? If you’re a home cinema addict, reduced noise and smaller form factors are certainly desirable. For a price, the AMD Phenom II X4 905E promises to make all that possible.

Like its Athlon II X4 610E sibling, the 905E is a low-power variant of a familiar AMD processor. In this case, it’s the full-on Deneb die found in high performance processors like the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. You therefore get all four cores and the full 6MB of L3 cache memory.

What you don’t get is high clockspeeds. The Phenom II X4 905E runs at 2.5GHz. However, it’s also rated at 65 Watts. That’s a small fraction of the 140 Watt TDP of a high end quad-core AMD processor.

For a chip that trades on efficiency, the AMD Phenom II X4 905E’s results in our platform power consumption tests are ugly. Using optimised motherboard settings, it actually consumes more power than the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition.

Something is clearly not right. Very likely, it’s a problem related to voltage settings and our test board’s BIOS. Anyway, two obvious lessons come out of this. Firstly, full motherboard support is required to get the best out of these low-power processors. Secondly, you may have to jump into the BIOS and do some hand tuning of the voltage settings.

As it is, we can’t comment on the 905E’s low power credentials. However, what we can say is that it runs an awful lot cooler than a normal quad-core Phenom II processor, even with the wrong voltage settings.

In most other areas, the 905E’s performance is predictable, which is to say solid if hardly spectacular. Compared to a budget quad-core chip but one that is nevertheless clocked slightly higher, such as the Ahtlon II X4 620, the 905E trades punches across our benchmark suite. It’s a little slower for video encoding but quicker at professional 3D rendering, gaming and file decompression.

As for the inevitable comparison with its low-power stable mate, the Athlon II X4 610E, it knocks out around 25 per cent more frames per second in the World of Conflict game benchmark. That could be the difference between smooth gameplay and irritating stutters. The 905E also clocks up better than the 610E, hitting 3.9GHz.

We liked:

Thanks to problems with motherboard support, the Phenom II X4 905E had a hard time impressing us. However, we still like the idea of a quad-core processor optimised for power efficiency. In raw performance terms, this chip would certainly make for great small form factor system.

We disliked:

Judging the Phenom II X4 905E’s power consumption is tricky without proper motherboard support. However, we’re confident that it’s less efficient than the Athlon II X4 610E and that makes it tricky to recommend given the price premium. We’d go with the cheaper chip.

Verdict:

An interesting take on low-power performance, but less convincing than the Athlon II X4 610E.

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Remember when AMD launched its first quad-core processor in 2007? We can, because back then it seemed like AMD was months from keeling over stone dead. Today, the company is in much finer fettle. For proof, look no further than the new AMD Phenom II X6 1055T.

Somehow, AMD has managed to produce a six-core PC processor and sell it for just over £10 more than its best quad-core chip, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. It’s actually cheaper than several Intel quads. Inspect the detail specifications and the Phenom II X6 1055T only gets more impressive.

The transistor count has grown from 758 million transistors to 904 million. And yet the smaller quad-core 965 is rated at 140 Watts while this new six-core 1055T is a 125 Watt chip. Of course, at 2.8GHz, the 1055T is clocked quite a bit lower than the 3.4GHz 965 BE. But AMD has clearly done something right.

It’s been a long time coming. But AMD finally has something really interesting to offer in the performance PC processor market. The new Phenom II X6 1055T gives you six cores for the price of four. Hell, if you compare it to some of the latest Intel latest dual-core chips such as the Core i5 661, you’re getting six for less than the price of two.

For the record, the 1055T also looks like great value next to AMD’s flagship six-core processor, the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition. The 1090T is clocked a little higher at 3.2GHz. But it’s also around £70 more expensive.

There’s a reason why AMD is punting a six-core CPU at such a bargain-basement price, of course. Core for core, Intel’s processors are much more powerful. That’s why the quad-core Intel Core i7 870is marginally faster for video encoding. But then it’s much more expensive. The Intel Core i5 750 and Core i5 760 are much closer on price and neither can live with the Phenom II X6 1055T’s multi-threaded throughput.

That said, it’s a different story in games and file decompression. Those applications tend to benefit more from a smaller number of really powerful cores. Predictably, the 1055T can’t keep up with Intel’s cheaper quads, much less its pricier models that sell for £200 or more.

That’s not a situation that changes when you factor in overclocking. Our 1055T sample will hit 3.65GHz with an air cooler, a respectable result given the stock 2.8GHz frequency. But Intel quads routinely breach the 4GHz barrier.

We liked:

The Phenom II X6 1055T is one hell of a lot of chip for the money. Frankly, we’ve no idea how AMD can sell this near-one billion-transistor chip so cheaply. But no matter. What really counts is the huge amount of parallel processing power the 1055T’s six cores deliver. It’s got to be the most cost effective video encoding chip in the world.

We disliked:

The six-core 1055T is an awesome CPU. But it’s not without its flaws. The main problem is the sheer age of AMD’s underlying CPU architecture. AMD’s cores are really getting on and it shows in the gaming and file decompression benchmarks.

Verdict:

Not the best gaming chip for the money, but still our favourite all rounder.

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Welcome back AMD, we’ve missed you. With the launch of the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition a few months ago, AMD signalled a revival of its CPU business. The 1090T is based on Thuban, a new six-core chip and easily the best processor design from AMD in years.

Admittedly, it’s not an all-new CPU. It’s mostly a six-core rehash of AMD’s existing 45nm quad-core architecture, known as Deneb. Of course, Deneb was essentially a 45nm respin of AMD’s 65nm Barcelona chip. Rinse and repeat right back to the original Hammer core from 2003.

Still, you only have to look at the Phenom II X6 1090T BE’s power rating to appreciate what AMD has achieved. This six-core, 45nm, 3.2GHz chip is rated at 125 Watts. The quad-core, 45nm, 3.4GHz Phenom II X4 965 Black Editionweighs in at 140 Watts. Clearly, AMD has at last got to grips with the 45nm production node.

With six cores humming a 3.2GHz tune, you’d expect the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition to sport decent multi-threading chops. You’d be right. If there’s a cheaper chip that offers better performance in video encoding and other highly parallelised applications, we haven’t seen it.

Less impressive, of course, is the 1090T’s per-core performance. That explains why it’s not so competitive in games and file decompression. OK, by those metrics it’s no slouch. But even Intel’s lowliest Core i5 quad-core model, the 750, has it well beaten.

One area where we had expected the 1090T to stumble is overclocking. It’ only fairly recently that AMD has been able to hit decent clocks with its quad-core processors. Odds are a six-core chip based on the same production process isn’t going to be a screamer.

Well, never mind the odds, because this chip will crack 4GHz with air cooling. What’s more, it will do it at sane voltage settings. It’s extremely impressive and lifts the 1090T from being a very useful tool for video encoding buffs to an all-round winner.

That’s especially true when you consider how much cheaper the overall platform cost is when you go with AMD. This high end six-core chip drops into the same AM3 socket as any current AMD processor. Compatible motherboards are therefore cheap and plentiful.

The only slight snag is the existence of the Phenom II X6 1055T. It’s quite a bit cheaper but only slightly slower. But either way, with six-core AMD you are well on the way to arguably the most cost effective computing solution currently available.

We liked:

Compared to Intel’s silly-money six-core processors, the Phenom II X6 1090T BE looks preposterously cheap. But the chip itself is only part of the reason why AMD-based PCs are such great value. Thanks to AMD’s single-socket strategy on the desktop, you can drop the 1090T into a £50 board and do some serious coding on the cheap.

We disliked:

As fantastic as the 1090T Black edition is, there’s one chip that’s even better value: the Phenom II X6 1055T. It’s essentially the same chip running slightly slower for a lot less money. What both models share is a slight weediness in games.

Verdict:

At last, an AMD Black Edition chip worthy of the name. But slightly overpriced.

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Feeling lucky today, punk? We reckon that’s the question you need to ask yourself before taking a punt on the AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition.

Based on AMD’s flagship Deneb processor die, the 720 has the full 6MB compliment of L3 cache. It also runs at a reasonable 2.8GHz frequency. As a Black Edition chip, it even has an unlocked CPU multiplier for easy overclocking. Not bad for a chip priced well under £100.

There is, however, something missing. AMD has disabled one of Deneb’s four cores. The Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition is a tripler, as indicated by the ‘X3′ moniker. It’s here that your luck will be tested because it’s possible to unlock the hidden core in the BIOS of most AM3-socket motherboards.

When it comes to core unlocking, there are no guarantees. But with just one hidden core, your odds are at least better than the AMD Phenom II X3 550 BE, which has two hidden cores and double the chance of one being broken.

We were hoping to make this review a tale of two halves. The first was to be a story of the Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition in standard triple-core trim, the second was to include revelations of a fourth core freed from its digital shackles.

But like the other two AMD chips with hidden cores (that’s the Athlon II X3 435 and Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition), the triple-core 720 disappointed. The fourth and final core in our review sample is a dud. At least it proves AMD doesn’t try to influence the press by handing out carefully vetted samples.

Anyway, the result is thatthePhenom II X3 720 BE must make a case for itself purely as a triple-core chip. Unfortunately, that’s a tough ask. As an all-rounder, the 720 is reasonable. It’s notably faster than the dual-core Phenom II X2 550 BE in multi-threaded software such as video encoding. Similarly, it has the edge over AMD’s bargain-priced quad, the Athlon II X4 620, in games.

The 720 also overclocks fairly well, hitting 3.8GHz on air cooling and a tweak of the CPU voltage settings. Problem is, while the 720 isn’t awful at anything, it also falls well short of excellence across the board. In a word, it’s mediocre. If you are a hardcore gamer, the high-clocking Phenom II X2 550 BE is probably a better bet. For everyone else, the quad-core Athlon II X4 620 makes more sense and costs less.

We liked:

With Intel sticking to even core counts, it was almost inevitable that AMD would step in with some triple-core chips. The Phenom II X3 720 BE certainly makes for an interesting triple-core option and is worth a look if you’re looking for a true all rounder with a very low price tag.

We disliked:

If you know what you want from your PC, odds are you won’t like the triple-core 720. Adequate at all things, it’s not great at anything. Whether it’s gaming or encoding, there are better chips for the money. And remember, there are no guarantees when it comes to unlocking that hidden fourth core.

Verdict:

AMD’s triples look good on paper, but somehow don’t add up to the sum of their parts.

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It’s about time AMD released a properly new processor architecture. Until that happens, it’s stuck with execution cores that largely date back to 2003. With that in mind, can the AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition really be a plausible performance processor?

AMD has certainly made life easier for its top quad-core chip by pricing it competitively. The Phenom II X4 965 BE is cheaper than Intel’s entry level quads, the Core i5 750 and Core i5 760. However, at 3.4GHz the 965 is clocked much higher than the Intel opposition.

However, the 965′s biggest challenge might just be the cheaper of AMD’s new six-core processors. The Phenom II X6 1055T is yours for an extra £10 or so. That’s awfully tempting. Of course, what the 1055T doesn’t have is an unlocked CPU multiplier. That’s an enthusiast-friendly feature that usually makes for easier and more effective overclocking and could tip the balance in favour of the quad-core 965.

Survival for AMD’s Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition is all about careful positioning in the price lists. Going by our multi-threaded benchmarks, you’d think AMD has nailed it. Compared to the more expensive Intel Core i5 750, the 965 returns almost identical figures in our HD video encoding and professional 3D rendering tests. Result.

That, however, is where the good news largely ends. Intel’s more modern processor architecture makes for smoother gaming performance, despite the Phenom’s clockspeed advantage. Likewise, the Core i5 750 completes our file decompression benchmark nearly 25 seconds faster.

Thing is, the Intel chip is not only more expensive itself, it also tends to come with higher overall platform costs. Put simply, Intel motherboards cost more. But that’s not a charge you can level at the six-core AMD Phenom II X6 1055T. It drops into precisely the same AM3 CPU socket and motherboards as the 965, levelling the playing field for the two AMD chips.

More to the point, the 1055T cranks out quite a bit more performance in our HD video encoding and pro rendering benchmarks. The six-core chip definitely makes more sense for a video editing rig. The 1055T is also a little snappier in our file decompression test.

Admittedly, the higher clocked 965 does turn the table in the World of Conflict timedemo, proving that more cores often doesn’t equate to better gaming performance. It’s also a better overclocking chip, with this latest C3 stepping of the Deneb core hitting 4.1GHz to the 1055T’s mere 3.65GHz. But as an all-round computing solution, this quad-core 965 Black Edition has been usurped by AMD’s new six-core processor.

We liked:

The 965 Black Edition is AMD’s most expensive quad-core processor. But it’s so aggressively priced, it’s yours for under £150. At 3.4GHz, the 965 is clocked pretty aggressively, too. All of which makes it very competitive with Intel’s cheaper quad-core chips. Add AMD’s cheaper platform pricing into the equation and the deal only looks sweeter.

We disliked:

The biggest problem for the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition comes from within. It’s AMD’s new six-core Phenom II X6. £10 or so seems like a good deal for a pair of extra cores. More generally, the Phenom architecture is nearing end of life. And it shows.

Verdict:

A solid quad-core processor, but the end is nigh. AMD’s newer six-core is better value.

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You can now buy PC processors with as many as six cores and support for up to 12 software threads in parallel. With that in mind, why would anyone want the dual-core AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition?

Actually, the theory behind this chip makes reasonable sense. Certain types of software benefit more from high clockspeeds and a big dollop of cache memory than lots of processor cores. Games are one good example. The 550 runs at a healthy 3.1GHz lick and packs 6MB of L3 cache memory. It’s also a Black Edition processor and that usually means easy access to even higher clocks. Why pay more for multi-core?

At under £80 the AMD Phenom II X4 550 is certainly affordable. All it needs to do is deliver the goods according to its narrow remit compared to the likes of AMD’s Athlon II X4 620, Athlon II X3 435 and perhaps the Phenom II X3 720.

First the good news. The AMD Phenom II X2 550 beats the opposition where it matters most. In our World of Conflict game benchmark it keeps its eyes on the prize and edges the Athlon II X4 620, Athlon II X3 435 and the Phenom II X3 720.

In fact, it’s usefully faster than the two Athlon chips clocking up 33 frames per second compared to 35 and 37 frames per second, respectively. The triple-core Phenom II X3 720 gets a little closer at 42 frame per second. But part one of the Phenom II X2 550 BE’s job is done. Its advantage in gaming gets even bigger when you take overclocking into account. 4GHz on air cooling is clearly quicker than its closest competition and allows the 550 pulls further ahead.

That said, if you’re willing to spend a more on an Intel chip, you’ll get way more gaming performance. The Intel Core i5 750, for instance, delivers 59 frames per second despite its modest 2.66GHz clockspeed. Make no mistake, running at its maximum 4.2GHz overclock, the Intel chip absolutely annihilates the Phenom II X2 550 BE in games.

As for all round system performance, the dual-core 550 is inevitably rather weak. It simply cannot keep up with processors with double the number of cores, such as the Athlon II X4 620. We’re also disappointed to find that our 550 sample fails to function when you enable the two hidden cores. So much for the idea of getting a quad-core chip on the cheap.

We liked:

If building a gaming rig on a very tight budget is your bag, the dual-core AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition just about adds up. It’s definitely a more effective gaming chip than other low-cost AMD processors. It also overclocks pretty well.

We disliked:

The 550 might be faster than other cheapo chips. But it’s still a lot slower in games than a decent Intel processor. Likewise, it struggles with any software that thrives on multi-core processor architectures. It would also be unwise to assume that the 550′s two hidden cores are likely to work when unlocked.

Verdict:

Just about makes sense for gamers on a tight budget. Not a great all rounder.

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At the Pentium 4′s press launch, Intel talked confidently about future versions reaching 10GHz.

Oh dear, now we know better. The path to performance lies with multiple core chips. Intel started the trend and where Intel goes, AMD isn’t too far behind – and does it cheaper.

On the tail of the Intel Core i7 980X we now have AMD’s own six-core offering based on the new Thuban core.

The first two versions are the 1055T running at 2.8GHz, and what we have here: the 1090T, running at 3.2GHz.

The ‘T’ is for Turbo, AMDs new Turbo CORE technology which boosts performance on selected cores to 3.3 and 3.6Ghz respectively – we’ll tell you more about that below.

Now lets get a little technical. What we have here is pretty much a four-core Deneb.

It’s made using a 45nm process and each core gets the same 512KB L2 cache, sitting on this is 6MB of L3 cache. There’s no extra over the four-core Phenom here, unlike Intel’s 980X whose two extra cores come replete with extra L3.

The Thermal Design Power of 125W tells us the limits aren’t being stretched excessively, desktop processors have a practical limits of around 140-150W TDP.

The memory controller offers two channel DDR3, rather than Intel’s triple channel. Essentially it’s simply two extra cores added onto a four-core Phenom, rather than the more comprehensive re-working involved with Intel’s six-core Gulftown.

One piece of most welcome news for upgraders is that – for once – a major change in chip doesn’t mean new motherboards all round.

The Thuban should slot into existing AM2+ and AM3 motherboards. You’ll need to flash your BIOS, but that should be it. If you’re running an AMD rig already then you’re in for a treat.

This is an important chip for AMD since the four core Phenom doesn’t appear to have many more clock cycles left in it and Intel’s Core i7 is just so good it has the top of the PC market for itself.

Turbo CORE

All these multiple cores are all well and good but there is an awful lot of code that will insist on just using one core, leaving most of your expensive multi-core chip staring vacantly out the window.

It’s all about keeping the total power consumption, and heat, within designed limits. Shut down or throttle back some core and you’ve more headroom for the remaining cores. Enter Turbo mode.

THE EASY WAY: Without getting aggressive on any of the settings the chip was quite happy to switch to 3.7GHz – faster than the standard chip in Turbo mode

Intel has its Turbo Boost technology and Thuban brings us AMD’s version: Turbo CORE.

Turbo Boost is wonderfully flexible, and can speed up and slow down individual cores and even shut them down completely. Turbo CORE has a less technically accomplished and heavy-handed approach.

If the chip detects that at least three of the cores are loitering with intent it’ll kick in and throttle back three cores to as low as 800MHz and boost the remaining cores by a set multiplier. It’s either on or off.

Turbo CORE is a welcome and logical addition to AMD’s armoury. It’s not as flexible or aggressive as Turbo Boost and to be honest at times its difficult to see much obvious difference, given that it switches on and off automatically on the fly. And that the gains are in the order of twelve percent frequency speeds. As with the Core i7, what works better is to push the chip as a whole.

Even more conservative overclocking to 3.7GHz puts you over Turbo mode, and on all cores to boot.

Still, until all software starts using what’s on offer some sort of ‘turbo’ mode doesn’t hurt. Overclockers might have more fun here, with the right board you can fiddle with Turbo mode and set it up for specific software to push part of the chip to the max.

Only, well, you’ve bought a six core chip haven’t you? Better to use it all of it.

The first tests we threw at our subject were the x264 encoding and Cinebench rendering tests.

These chuck data at every core as fast as possible and give the pure processing power a chance to shine, and it did, giving quad-core Core i7 a decent rival at last.

Running at its nominal speed of 3.2GHz, both tests beat an Intel Core i7 920, which runs at a little more pedestrian 2.8Ghz, albeit with the healthy advantage of eight threads.

The Cinebench rendering test is particularly impressive. Switch to the overclocked versions and it starts to fall behind a little, here the 920 can be pushed to 4.1Ghz (which is why we like it soooo much).

We were all ready to dip into our big bag of superlatives and start being flowery, when we ran the World in Conflict benchmark. And it is, well, not bad, just not particularly sparkling. Here the Core i7 920 still shows a clean pair of heels and that’s why those searchers of gaming prowess still tread a path to Intel’s door.

So much for standard speeds, but who wants to stop there? AMD supplied us its Thuban sitting in an ASUS Crosshair IV motherboard. These rather flashy specialist boards are aimed at overclockers and have a bewildering array of tweaks on offer, including an automated overclocking procedure.

AUTO-OVERCLOCK: The ASUS motherboard we were using also has an overdrive utility, which includes an Auto Tuning mode

When we first booted-up it insisted on running the chip at 3.7GHz, and it took delving into the BIOS and setting it manually in the BIOS to get the 1090 running at the speeds advertised. Once benchmarked we began to delve.

AMD supplies its own overclocking utility, OverDrive, to guide your operations. Here you can adjust the multiplier, and base clock as well as an impressive set voltages, timings and frequencies. The advanced settings are just that. At one point it showed we were gunning along at 4.45GHz on all six cores, which had us all excited for a few minutes, but the benchmarks that would run didn’t match.

Both the AMD and ASUS overclocking utilities feature automated tuning and both were happy to switch to 3.7GHz. But who can resist manual mode?

We tried various combinations of multipliers and clock speeds and settled on 18x and 222MHz as fast and stable, giving us a whisker under 4GHz. A multiplier of 20x on the standard 200MHz bus also reaches the heady 4GHz milestone.

TURBO-V: The ASUS TurboV EVO utility in action: offering a choice between an automated mode and almost too many manual settings

The maximum temperature is quoted as 62 °C, pretty low compared to what a Core i7 can reach. According to the monitoring software we got nowhere near this hot. In fact we barely saw 50 °C, even the full six-core benchmarks were run one after the other and it didn’t get ruffled.

If you don’t skirt the extremes of overclocking, this is a pretty cool running chip. Given that the Thuban has a 25 per cent larger die size than Deneb, staying to 125W TDP at these speeds is an impressive feat.

Can it go faster? It was tantalisingly close to stable at 4.2GHz. Windows booted as usual and playing around at the desktop reveal no problems, but alas, the benchmarks crashed out soon after starting. We suspect there is more to be had here.

Others more adept at fiddling with esoteric voltage settings should be able to wring a little more out of it. Paying more attention to the Turbo CORE settings could also prove fruitful.

Coupled with an overclocking-friendly board there’s some interesting options open here: do run all cores at top speed and forget Turbo mode? Or do you run fewer cores and push the Turbo to the max?

4.4 GHZ: Here it is reporting that we are running on a 20x multiplier and 222MHz base clock giving a heady 4.45GHz. It didn’t last…

Given that AMD supplies overclocking tools, and that among the first rash of machines sporting the Thuban are some that come ready overclocked to 4.0GHz – why run your 1090T at the boggo standard speed at all? Well quite. Is it some bizarre marketing angle, making you think you’ve somehow got something for free? Perhaps.

Intel does pretty much the same thing, selling eminently overclockable chips running at sub-optimal speeds. It’s a ‘feature’ – a welcome one undoubtedly, but a slightly odd one nevertheless.

It’s not like the old days where such trickery wasn’t encouraged and you really felt you’d pulled a fast one and saved money. All this rather begs the question, what can you squeeze out of the cheaper 1055T? That’ll be interesting to see. Plus of course these two are just the first Thubans, faster will undoubtedly follow.

Technical analysis

As you might expect, any software that can scale neatly across all six cores does very nicely thank you.

In the x264 and Cinepack tests the 1090T really shines and bares comparison with Intel’s lovely Core i7 920, which may have two fewer cores but has two threads per core, giving it effectively eight, plus a 2MB fatter L3 cache. It was overclocked to 4.1Ghz.

The obvious weak spot is the World in Combat test, run at 800 x 600 and low detail and high physics to stress the processor rather than the graphics. Here AMD gives considerable ground to Intel.

The Dirt2 test, run at maximum graphics settings, narrowed the gap and proves its no gaming slouch either. Oddly overclocking here had little effect. No it isn’t top dog, but it does have sharp teeth.

Encoding performance

X264 v2

1090T 28
1090T overclocked 32
i7 920 27
i7 920 overclocked 39

X264 v3

1090T 29.2
1090T overclocked 34.3

Rendering performance

Cinebench R10

1090T 48
1090T overclocked 40
i7 920 55
i7 920 overclocked 37

Cinebench R11

1090T 5.55
1090T overclocked 6.88

Gaming performance

World in Combat

1090T 151
1090T overclocked 169
i7 920 227
i7 920 overclocked 334

Dirt2

1090T 69
1090T overclocked 71
i7 920 80
i7 920 overclocked 100

AMD’s six-core Thuban turned out to be pretty much what we expected: it’s a good value general slogger with some very impressive raw processing power on offer, but as an out and out gaming chip it still comes second to Intel’s offerings: the Core i7 still rules the gaming roost.

It’s tempting to compare the 1090T Thuban directly with Intel’s six-core Core i7 980X. Do this and you’ll definitely be disappointed.

It’s not nearly as fast in any test, it doesn’t have two threads per core or twice the L3 cache for a start so it would have been an amazing feat if it was within striking distance of Intel’s finest. It may be AMDs fastest desktop chip yet, but it’s not gunning for the top spot.

As ever, price is everything. At £200 a pop it’s aimed squarely at the quad-core Core i7s and Core i5s, currently the 1090T is priced directly opposite the Core i7 920. Given that initial prices have a habit of falling rapidly what we have here is another AMD performance bargain.

Only the lack of outright single thread games power, where many games benefit most, makes us hesitate to gush unduly, although if you run your games with the pressure resting on your graphics card the gap narrows.

Unless overclockers can wring something special out of the 1090T, it’s merely a worthy and good value chip rather than the new superstar. If you just want six-core goodness for your multi-threaded apps, then it’s certainly a proper bargain. For an upgrade an existing AMD system it’s a joy.

As in the past, AMD gives you more cores for the money. And you can’t complain about value for money can you?

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