Introduction

AMD's Phenom II has been one of least hyped up processors from AMD, mostly because it hasn't been the success that AMD really wanted it to be. K10 was supposed to be AMD's answer to Core 2 and while it does give the Core 2 line a run for its money, especially given the price range, the major competitor has AMD already aced with Core i7 and it's not looking good for AMD in the price range now with Core i7 LGA1156 and Core i5 LGA1156 processors set to take on K10 in the mainstream. AMD has a bit to pull now.

While it's not the runaway success, K10 really is a great value product. It's a quad core processor with an on-die memory controller that not only supports DDR2, but also DDR3. It's a perfect bridge processor for AM2+ users who want to keep their current boards and memory, but get a new processor. Phenom II gives you the option of a dual channel DD2 memory controller now with the ability to go to a dual channel DDR3 memory controller by simply putting the processor into an AM3 board with DDR3 memory support, something Intel hasn't bothered to do. It's DDR3 all the way with them.

Just recently we had a look at the Black Edition 955 Phenom II processor with unlocked multipliers. Today we have been sent AMD's latest addition to its speed bin. Clocking in at 3.4GHz, this processor is the fastest clocked model to come from AMD, even when including the Athlon X2 line. Let's see how well it does.