AMD Phenom II X4 975 Black Edition

AMD Phenom II X4 975 BE review

Another day, another minor variation on a familiar theme from AMD. By now you'll know our equally familiar refrain regarding the circa-2003 origins of AMD's performance PC processors, up to and including the latest Thuban sixcore models. But if AMD's underlying CPU architecture is ancient, even the latest derivatives are getting on a bit. The Phenom II X4 975 Black Edition is the newest chip in AMD's quad-core Phenom II range, but it uses the same old 45nm Deneb die first seen nearly two years ago. Okay, we're now up to stepping C3, and a few tweaks have been made along the way, but there's no denying that AMD's chips are woofers well past learning significantly new tricks. For the record, the 975 ups AMD's quad-core ante to 3.6GHz. That's a fairly inconsequential 100MHz increase on its progenitor, the Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition. The benchmark results are predictable to the point of monotony. Nevertheless, it's our duty to inform you that the 975 completes the R10 version of the Cinebench 3D rendering test in precisely one minute and one second. Funnily, that's exactly the same result we recorded for the 970, which tells you all you need to know about the 975.