AMD announces Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition CPU
updated 10:15 pm EDT, Thu April 23, 2009
AMD Phenom Black Edition
AMD on Thursday announced its latest processor in the Phenom II series, the quad-core X4 955 Black Edition that is geared for gaming or overclocking. The CPU is claimed to be the company's fastest yet, running at 3.2 GHz, with a 4,000MHz bus, 2MB of L2 cache and 6MB of L3 cache. The platform, codenamed "Dragon," consists of the Black Edition processor, AMD 7-Series chipsets and ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics.
The processor can be used in conjunction with the company's OverDrive 3.0 software for overclocking. AMD at CES broke the FutureMark 3DMark 05 world record, with the first quad-core x86 processor to surpass 6.5GHz and reach 45,474 3DMarks. A liquid-helium cooling system was used to reach temperatures of -232 degrees Celsius.
With standard overclocking, lacking the advanced cooling technology, the CPU was brought up to 4.2GHz. The method is described in a blog post written by AMD's senior manager of advanced marketing, Ian McNaughton.
The Black Edition CPU is now available and can be purchased alone for $245.
