AMD recently dropped the price of the Phenom series dramatically. You can now buy an AMD Phenom Quad Core for less than what you need for an Intel C2Q processor. What we need to find out later on in this review is whether an AMD Phenom Quad core processor performs in various applications and 3D graphic games.

AMD Phenom processors represent the next generation of AMD’s multi-core Direct Connect Architecture with AMD64 technology enabling greater memory throughput, lower latency and faster connections to system resources including graphics processors and accelerators.

Featuring what AMD calls "true quad-core technology", AMD Phenom are designed for performance and energy efficiency.

The latest versions of the AMD Phenom X4 series 9x50 are free from the "famous" TLB bug so you don't have to worry about this anymore. The X4 9x50 series include several models such as 9550, 9650, 9750, 9850 and 9950 Black Edition. A comparison table follows as found over AMD's web site:

We see that the majority of the of 9x50 series have the same amount of L2/L3 cache, while their frequency varies. Also notice that the power requirements (TDP) of the 9950 are different so you make sure your motherboard is designed for 140Watt before buying the CPU. The HT 3.0 but speed is at 2.0GHz, while the stock voltage is set at 1.30V. Hopefully later this year, AMD will move to the 45nm manufacturing process and it will offer increased frequencies overall overclocking capabilities.

In this review we will have a look at the AMD Phenom X4 9950 that features 2MB of L2 cache or 512KB per core. The available L3 cache is also 2MB and as it is works as a buffer between the four cores, it should help the performance.

The AMD Phenom X4 9950 also comes with the "BE" letters, which represent the "Black Edition" naming. This means that the CPU multiplier is unlocked and as such, it can be overclocked without much hassle and extra knowledge.

- Compatibility

While the Phenom X4 processors should be paired with AM2+ motherboards, it is possible that even the earlier AM2 motherboards could support them with a BIOS update. However we are not very sure that the X4 9950 BE can be installed on an AM2 motherboard since it it requires 140Watt design. In fact, using an AM2+ motherboard should give you the highest possible speeds, effectively boosted by the use of the faster DDR2-1067MHz and not the previous clocking of 800MHz.

- Specifications