AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Performance Preview August 12, 2009 Brandon Sandman Bell

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Review

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Dropping from 65-nm Phenom and Athlon parts to 45-nm Phenom II and Athlon II was supposed to be the answer to this nagging issue. Both Phenom II and Athlon II families of CPUs deliver significantly improved performance over their predecessors, with lower power consumption and increased frequency headroom (read: overclocking); two issues which Phenom and Athlon never could overcome. In this regard, Phenom II and Athlon II have been unqualified success stories for AMD. The problem is, even with their newer 45-nm processors delivering improved performance, AMD has been forced to continually slash prices on their latest processors as the tit-for-tat price war between AMD and Intel dating all the way back to summer 2006 has continued: just when AMD begins to catch up to Intel in CPU performance, Intel responds with price cuts and cheaper dual and quad-core processors. AMD is then forced to respond to Intel with price cuts of their own.

This is slowly crippling AMD’s bottom line. Last month the company reported losses of $330 million for Q2’09. Digging deeper in the numbers, AMD reported margins of 37%, a decline of 6% from Q1 of this year. As a result of the CPU price cuts, their ASPs (average selling price) continue to fall, while their CPU shipments were flat.

So basically AMD cut their prices, but they didn’t manage to sell more CPUs than they did in the prior quarter. It doesn’t take an MBA from Harvard to figure out that’s a hard way to make money.

Today's introduction of the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition is supposed to help AMD improve their margins, but with Intel’s impending Lynnfield launch looming around the corner, AMD isn’t using the introduction of the 965 BE to introduce a new $250+ price point. Instead the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition is selling for the 955’s old price, $245, and AMD cut prices on several existing Phenom II CPUs and one Athlon II CPU earlier this week.

That’s great news for consumers. You can now pick up AMD’s former flagship processor, the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition, for $200 on Newegg, but it’s bad news if you’re an AMD shareholder: unless AMD can phase out more 65-nm Athlon parts, don’t expect ASPs to improve this quarter.

Under the hood of the 965

So what new features does the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition bring to the table? As the rumors have suggested for the past month or so, the 965 is indeed clocked at 3.4GHz -- 200MHz faster than the 955 -- but the CPU also boasts a higher 140W TDP (thermal design power). Previous Phenom II CPUs have maxed out at 125W TDP.

On one hand we’re happy to see that AMD isn’t resorting to half multipliers and their incremental 100MHz speed bumps for their latest Phenom II BE CPU, but on the other, critics will point out this also contributes to the higher TDP figure.

Frankly as enthusiasts who crave max performance, we think the TDP comparisons are a bit overblown, as the incremental increase in power consumption is usually a tradeoff we’ll happily take if that means improved performance. Just remember that with a higher TDP though, cooling will be more important. AMD has bumped the max temp up to 65 degrees Celsius (from 62) for the 965 Black Edition. Again, this isn’t a big deal for enthusiasts running decent AM3 cooling in a midrange case, but could be a concern for those of you sticking with the stock AMD cooler in a smaller HTPC chassis.

The 965 chip is based on the exact same processor revision and stepping as the previous Phenom II 955, so the silicon itself carries over unchanged. As a result, AMD’s essentially giving us a free 200MHz speed boost, with price cuts on slower Phenom II parts.

AMD also says select etailers including Newegg, TigerDirect, NCIX, Mwave, and ZipZoomFly will be offering CPU+mobo bundle deals where the Phenom II X4 965 is paired with an AM3 motherboard for $40 or more off the regular price. For even more savings, bundle deals adding Radeon GPUs and Corsair memory will also be offered.

Overclocking and new titles added to Smart Profiles

Since this is essentially the same hardware found in the 955, we weren’t expecting the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition to overclock any further than our 955 did, and unfortunately, that’s exactly what we got.

The 965 CPU topped out at 3.849GHz (19.0x202.6), which is actually 11MHz shy of what we hit with our 955 sample. Like the 955, we could clock the 965 at speeds up to 4.0GHz and even run a couple of benchmarks at that speed, but in order to obtain full stability in all our CPU tests we had to dial the clocks down to 3.849GHz. We needed just over 1.5V of juice to obtain stability at that speed.

System Setup

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Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650
Intel Core 2 Duo E8600

ASUS P5E3 Premium

4GB (4x1GB) OCZ DDR3 PC3-16000 Platinum

Intel Core i7-920

Gigabyte GA-EX58 Extreme

6GB (3x2GB) OCZ Reaper HPC DDR3-1600

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition

Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair CM3X2G1600C9DHX

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295
ForceWare 190.38

500GB Western Digital Caviar SE16

Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit w/Service Pack 2

Benchmarks

Lost Planet
ARMA II
Crysis
Far Cry 2

Media Encoding/Rendering Benchmarks

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Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark

ARMA II

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ARMA II – Direct3D

Far Cry 2

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Far Cry 2 – Direct3D

Crysis

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Crysis – Direct3D

Lost Planet

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Lost Planet – Direct3D

Overclocked Performance

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Conclusion

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The 965’s closest competitor in terms of price is probably Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q9550, which currently sells for $220 on Newegg (the Q9650 sells for $320). In head-to-head performance testing, the two CPUs are pretty competitive with each other. The Phenom II 965 outruns the Q9550 in games like Lost Planet and Crysis, but the Q9550 pulled ahead in our testing with ARMA II and Far Cry 2. Our media encoding and rendering tests tend to favor the Core 2 Quad though, with only Cinebench giving the performance nod to AMD Phenom II.

If we had to purchase a new CPU in this price bracket though, we’d point you in an entirely different direction and recommend the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition. Sure, it’s 200MHz slower than the 965, but it’s based on the exact same silicon and can easily be OC’ed to speeds of 3.4GHz and well beyond. We actually managed to OC our 955 CPU sample slightly further than our 965 chip.

The best part is that the 955 sells for $200 right now, making it a bargain considering the overall performance it delivers and its unlocked clock multiplier. You could then take the money you saved and get a better GPU, which is going to have a bigger impact on your gaming performance anyway.

In all honesty though, if you can wait another month or so, that may be an even better option than the Phenom II 955. With the introduction of Lynnfield, the CPU landscape could be vastly different than it is today. Rumor has it that Intel plans to offer 3 Lynnfield SKUs at launch next month, with two of them selling for less than $300. At the very least, that could put pressure on Intel to lower their prices for high-end Core 2 CPUs like the Q9550 and Q9650, which in turn could force AMD to further trim Phenom II prices.

We just have to wait and see where all the chips stack up against each other in terms of performance and price.

If you simply can’t wait until September to upgrade your CPU, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition is a solid performer and shouldn’t disappoint most gamers. Just don’t complain if it’s selling for $200 a month from now.