AMD Releases Phenom II x4 965 Black Edition

The latest in AMD’s line of oomph-worthy Black Edition processors, the sexy X4 965 is, according to its manufacturer, the world’s highest clocked quad core processor made specifically for desktop PC systems.

Also arriving as the newest entrant to AMD’s Dragon Platform, which launched at the beginning of 2009, the X4 965 Black Edition offers PC enthusiasts access to significantly enhanced performance without a jaw-dropping price tag that requires re-mortgaging the house or carrying out a daring bank raid.

Priced at around $245 USD, the X4 965 Black Edition promises a factory-set core frequency of 3.4GHz (before overclocking), and 2MBs of L2 cache and 6MBs of L3 cache (shared).

Other contributing technical aspects designed to loosen the pocket books of even the most frugal PC devotees include 45nm fabrication technology, a transistor count of 758 million, a memory control speed of up to 2.0GHz with Dual Dynamic Power Management, and support for unregistered DIMMs up to PC2-8500 (DDR2 at 1066MHz) and PC3-10600 (DDR3 at 1333MHz).

Compatible with both socket AM2+ and AM3 motherboards, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition might not quite match up to AMD’s previous flagship X4 955 processor, but it certainly provides avid computer gamers and those looking to upgrade their systems with an attractively priced option."

NewEgg page

Now, I know there are a lot of hard core Intel fans here, but I'm personally excited for this since it seems like a lot of hardware for only $250.  I'm probably going to do a mobo/cpu/gfx upgrade in the next few months and this looks appealing to me.  I know that a little more goes into a cpu other than the clockspeed, but at 3.4 x 4 that's pretty good.  Compare that to the highest clocked i7 on new egg at $1,000 and this just seems like a steal.