AMD Introduces New Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Processor

Thursday, April 23 2009

AMD announced a platform refresh today for Dragon platform technology, including the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor. As AMD’s fastest ever quad-core processor, it brings all the capabilities gamers, enthusiasts and do-it-yourselfers have come to expect from AMD, including world record setting performance, high-speed DDR3 memory support and AMD OverDrive 3.0 technology, giving users more control over their computing experience.

The Dragon technology refresh consists of the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor, AMD 7-Series chipsets and award winning ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics. With this platform refresh, AMD is combining its fastest processor with the massive graphics processing muscle of its most powerful GPU to deliver high definition video entertainment and “beyond HD” resolutions3 that allow gamers to take the latest games to the extreme.

AMD is committed to bringing high-performance desktop PCs to the enthusiast, gaming and DIY communities. To best meet the needs of these communities, AMD is taking a balanced platform approach, providing optimal CPU, graphics and chipset performance all at an affordable price.

Running at a frequency of 3.2 GHz, the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor joins Dragon platform technology to give users speed with plenty of headroom. With speed, you need control, and the new AMD OverDrive 3.0 software delivers with a few new features:

AMD Black Edition Memory Profile lets users create custom profiles that can easily overclock known DDR3 memory to quickly and easily achieve optimum high speed DDR3 performance.
AMD Smart Profiles can automatically tune performance for specific applications, whether for max performance or quiet operation. Choose from pre-defined application profiles or create your own to personalize the experience.

With AMD, consumers have the option to upgrade when the time is right for their budget and overall experience. Socket AM3 processors, such as the latest AMD Phenom II CPUs, are backwards compatible with existing AM2+ platforms running DDR2 memory, and can also transition to AM3 motherboards that support DDR3 memory when the time is right. Unlike the competition, AMD users can upgrade without having to purchase multiple new components.
For more information on the latest Dragon platform technology and where you can get it – Check it out!

See what AMD’s Ian McNaughton has to say about this new processor here.

Source: AMD

posted by btarunr - 11:28 PM | Related News |

User comments

by Mega-Japan (April 23rd - 11:40 PM) - Reply

Super Special Awesome. Although I heard (from OverClocker's club review of 955BE) that the 955BE doesn't overclock that well, not as close as 940 was able to, which is a small minus.
But still, go AMD!

by Lumpy (April 23rd - 11:49 PM) - Reply

Meh..does it come in tri-core.lol

by Arrakis+9 (April 23rd - 11:49 PM) - Reply

yay for competition! go amd go :toast:

by Nick89 (April 24th - 1:32 AM) - Reply

So what makes it better than my 940 BE?:laugh:

by erocker (April 24th - 1:48 AM) - Reply

by: Lumpy
Meh..does it come in tri-core.lol

Yes, they are called the X3 710 and X3 720 BE.

by Esse (April 24th - 3:54 AM) - Reply

by: Nick89
So what makes it better than my 940 BE?:laugh:

DDR3.

Mind you I got a 940BE myself and see no reason to upgrade. DDR2 isn't going anywhere for a while still.

by blkhogan (April 24th - 4:21 AM) - Reply

by: Esse
DDR3.

Mind you I got a 940BE myself and see no reason to upgrade. DDR2 isn't going anywhere for a while still.

by swaaye (April 24th - 4:56 AM) - Reply

You can run DDR2 533 and get almost the same speed out of Phenom as with DDR3 1333, fyi. It's like a single digit % difference.

The advantage to the DDR3 Phenom II CPUs is a higher clocked northbridge, meaning a higher-clocked L3 cache. It's 2.0 GHz vs. 1.8 GHz, I believe. That's good for a few % more. Of course, a PII owner can always jump into the BIOS and set his chip to a faster north bridge multiplier and almost all of them seem to be able to do 2.2 GHz or better.

by Imsochobo (April 24th - 8:04 AM) - Reply

Untrue, you can just increase the multiplier on PHII AM2+ 940 BE. issue, solved.

I do 2.6 ghz nb and HT-link. ive seen 945 with 3.3 ghz ht-link, and THAT IS something.

by roadie (April 24th - 11:22 AM) - Reply

Looks like the limit for these chips and pretty much all the AM3 Phenoms is 3.7Ghz on air. Not bad, but I think Intel overclocks better for the same price.

by HolyCow02 (April 24th - 2:37 PM) - Reply

Mine is on the way! Excepts is coming from California not Jersey :(

by cdawall (April 24th - 5:06 PM) - Reply

by: Mega-Japan
Super Special Awesome. Although I heard (from OverClocker's club review of 955BE) that the 955BE doesn't overclock that well, not as close as 940 was able to, which is a small minus.
But still, go AMD!

4.2ghz on air 4.8ghz on DICE easily with out pusing voltages

by: swaaye
You can run DDR2 533 and get almost the same speed out of Phenom as with DDR3 1333, fyi. It's like a single digit % difference.

The advantage to the DDR3 Phenom II CPUs is a higher clocked northbridge, meaning a higher-clocked L3 cache. It's 2.0 GHz vs. 1.8 GHz, I believe. That's good for a few % more. Of course, a PII owner can always jump into the BIOS and set his chip to a faster north bridge multiplier and almost all of them seem to be able to do 2.2 GHz or better.

wrong just wrong i have run both highend DDR2 (1200+) and highend DDR3 (1800) you notice a difference in anything memory intensive

by: roadie
Looks like the limit for these chips and pretty much all the AM3 Phenoms is 3.7Ghz on air. Not bad, but I think Intel overclocks better for the same price.

i hit 4.2ghz

by Fx (April 24th - 7:26 PM) - Reply

by: HolyCow02
Mine is on the way! Excepts is coming from California not Jersey :(

mine is out for delivery right now! =]

i already flashed the BIOS for this now I just gotta get home and pop that puppy in and shelf the old crusty Phenom 9500!

by alucasa (April 25th - 12:36 AM) - Reply

Unfortunately, PhII X4 955 is priced the same as i7 920 in Canada. If I had to choose between either one, I'd go for i7 920 since I can make a nice use of 8 threads.
I need to pay for 40 CAD more for a X58 motherboard.

by Fx (April 25th - 12:39 AM) - Reply

by: alucasa
Unfortunately, PhII X4 955 is priced the same as i7 920 in Canada. If I had to choose between either one, I'd go for i7 920 since I can make a nice use of 8 threads.
I need to pay for 40 CAD more for a X58 motherboard.

i'll keep supporting the little dog as long as the performance is sufficient which isnt hard to do especially these days with vid cards doing a lot of the heavy lifting

by alucasa (April 25th - 12:43 AM) - Reply

I don't care about supporting "the little dog" personally to be honest. All I care about is what I can get the best out of my money and my interest additionally.

by Fx (April 25th - 12:51 AM) - Reply

by: alucasa
I don't care about supporting "the little dog" personally to be honest. All I care about is what I can get the best out of my money and my interest additionally.

I agree with that generally but with AMD and Intel it is different. besides you will still pay more for the supporting components for your i7

its been said a million times but if AMD went under you wouldnt have any Intel cpus being reasonably priced

so with this AMD/Intel war you should keep that in mind and help out the little dog every once in awhile or you are just being a short-sighted consumer

by alucasa (April 25th - 12:54 AM) - Reply

by: Fx
I agree with that generally but with AMD and Intel it is different. besides you will still pay more for the supporting components for your i7

its been said a million times but if AMD went under you wouldnt have any Intel cpus being reasonably priced

so with this AMD/Intel war you should keep that in mind and help out the little dog every once in awhile or you are just being a short-sighted consumer

I am glad to be a short-sighted consumer. At least, I am only short-sighted rather than completely blinded by fanboyism. (Not meant at you.)
I am no sage or anything. I am just a mere person.

by swaaye (April 25th - 4:37 AM) - Reply

by: cdawall
wrong just wrong i have run both highend DDR2 (1200+) and highend DDR3 (1800) you notice a difference in anything memory intensive

Feel free to back that up because everything I've seen points to a very minimal improvement from even a dramatic improvement in bandwidth. You can leave out the synthetic memory benchmarks.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/phenom-ii-x4-810_8.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/phenom-ii-x4-810_10.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/phenom-ii-x4-810_11.html

Games seem to show the biggest gains of maybe 10% or so between DDR2-800 and DDR3-1600. Non-games are less, approaching the insignificant, as I said.

This older review of the Phenom I with DDR2-533 and DDR2-1066 shows the same.
http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/cpu/amd-phenom-x4-9850-ddr2-533-p1.html
"Twofold difference on one hand, and 3% performance gain on the other hand - do you need any comments?" :)

In my opinion, DDR3 vs. DDR2 is just like the old DD1 vs. DDR2 situation. DDR1 and DDR2 were about the same in performance, but DDR2 was on the way in and DDR1 on the way out. The move to DDR3 isn't as much for performance as it is a future-proofing of the platform. DDR3 apparently has some advantages in power usage though, which may be nice in notebooks.

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