AMD Phenom II X6 1075T/X4 970/X2 560 and Athlon II X4 645
Summary
While the performance of these chips isn’t an earth shattering paradigm shift, the fact that half our review chips were able to see 4GHz without increasing voltage is simply fantastic. The good news with this release is that now you can get a quad core for $99, the older Athlon II X4 640. Whether or not the 100MHz on the Athlon II X4 645 is worth the 20% price premium is up to you, but we’d stick to the Athlon II X4 640.
The pricing of the Phenom II X4 970 is interesting. It’s clocked only 200Mhz above the turbo speed of the Phenom II X6 1055T, while costing only $15 or so less, why someone would go for it over the X6 for such a paltry sum is odd. In nearly all cases we’d recommend going straight for the X6, unless you are a heavy overclocker and want the unlocked multiplier of the X4 970. In that case, there are no doubts that the X4 970 will overclock more easily than the 1055T, and the maximum clock speed will also be higher, thanks to the locked multiplier of the 1055T.
With the 965 and the 555 sticking around, the new chips would seem as though they’re redundant, and they would be redundant, but they overclock like mad. While we couldn’t unlock our 560, it still managed 4.2GHz on air. The 4GHz of our 970 is astonishing. Very impressive.
The most expensive chip of the lot is the Phenom II X6 1075T. Costing roughly $50 more than the 1055T, the premium could be a tough pill to swallow, but, again, the improvements in manufacturing tech can be the saving grace, with insane overclockability.
Intel still holds the raw performance title, albeit with ridiculously expensive chips. If you want the best of the absolute best, then you have no choice but Intel, but for the cost of a single processor, you could have an entire setup with an AMD processor. Even with the Bloomfield/Lynnfield Core i7s, you’re going to end up spending a lot more. While the processors may not be much more expensive themselves, the platform costs are considerably higher, especially for socket 1366.
All things considered, the release of these chips is a very good thing – from dropping prices on other AMD chips to being excellent overclockers.
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AMD Phenom II X6 1075TAMD Phenom II X4 970AMD Phenom II X2 560AMD Athlon II X4 645 |
