AMD Launches New Phenom II and Athlon II Processors

Performance Summary: Due to the fact that all of the new processors featured in this article were simply speed bumps of existing CPU designs, summarizing their performance is quite simple. As expected, the new Phenom II X6 1075T wasn’t quite as fast as the higher-clock Phenom II X6 1090T. Throughout our testing, the 1075T finished a couple of percentage points behind the 1090T. The new Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition and Athlon II X4 645, however, due to their higher clocks, finished slightly ahead of the Phenom II 965 and Athlon II 640 they supplant at the top of their respective product line-ups—as they should.

Other than their clock speeds and model numbers, there may not be much new to report in regard to the fresh batch of processors being launched today by AMD, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. With the new Phenom II X6 1075T, AMD brings an affordable, yet high performance, sub-$250 6-core CPU to market. And the Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition and Athlon II X4 645 represent great values in their respective price segments. Additionally, the Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition represents the highest clocked quad-core processor to ever leave AMD’s labs. At 3.5GHz with a sub $185 street price, the Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition offers the best single-thread performance of any AMD desktop processor to date along with excellent multi-threaded performance as well.

Clockwise From Top: The AMD Athlon II X4 645, Phenom II X6 1075T, and Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition

These new processors don’t do much to erase the significant performance advantage Intel’s desktop Core 2010 processors continue to enjoy over AMD’s offerings.  We’ll have to wait for Bulldozer to see if AMD can manage that feat. For now though, all of these new processors represent strong values at their respective price points. The fact that you can build an entire Phenom II X6 1075T-based system for less than the cost of any Intel 6-core processor alone is a testament to that. If you’re in the market for a new processor and any of these new chips fall within your budget, do yourself a favor and check them out. Intel may still have a firm grasp on the desktop CPU performance crown, but dollar-for-dollar AMD continues to have some very compelling offerings.