Phenom 9950 BE 125W review

AMD's Phenom processor has been power hungry since it's release but that was stepped up even more when the Phenom 9950 was released with a 140W TDP, higher than other desktop CPUs on the market. This sent something of a stir into the enthusiast crowd whether justified or not for a processor with such a high power rating. Recently, however, AMD released a 125W version of the Phenom 9950 after improving the manufacturing process to replace the previous 140W version. Both are still on the market now and we thought we'd take a look at this new Phenom 9950 125W and compare it to the original 140W processor.

Model	Phenom 9950 BE 125W	Phenom 9950 BE 140W
Processor	AMD Phenom™ X4 Quad-Core
OPN Tray	HD995ZXAJ4BGH	HD995ZFAJ4BGH
OPN Pib	HD995ZXAGHBOX	HD995ZFAGHBOX
Operating Mode 32 Bit	Yes
Operating Mode 64 Bit	Yes
Revision	B3
Core Speed (MHz)	2600
System Bus Speed (MHz)	4000
Voltages	1.05-1.30	1.05-1.30
Max Temps (C)	61'C	64'C
Wattage	125 W	140 W
L1 Cache Size (KB)	128
L1 Cache Count	4
L2 Cache Size (KB)	512
L2 Cache Count	4
L3 Cache Size (KB)	2048
CMOS	65nm SOI

• Mother Board Foxconn 790GX
• CPU Various
• Video Card Radeon HD 4670
• Memory Corsair XMS Dominator 2GB
• Hard Drive Western Digital 750GB
• Case Tsunami Thermaltake
• Display Samsung 20" LCD Westinghouse W4207

Phenom 9950 BE 125W review

Phenom 9950 BE 125W review

Phenom 9950 BE 125W Conclusion:

We came in expecting perhaps a slight difference in power consumption between the 9950 BE 140W and the 9950 BE 125W of maybe 8-10W but ultimately we saw basically no difference between the two and only a slight a few degrees in temperature. Overclocking showed no variables between the two processors either. Though as mentioned this could be a unique case and given which processor to buy we'd still prefer the 125W Phenom 9950 BE over the 140W. That said if you see the 140W for much cheaper I wouldn't be afraid of it as long as your motherboard is rated for 125W processors. Hopefully we can see a larger dive in power consumption with the 45nm Phenoms do in the future but that is a little further down the line.

Phenom 9950 BE 125W Pricing:

The 125W Phenom 9950 BE can be had for $184. This is the cheapest price that we can find for both a 140W Phenom and 125W Phenom so it seems that the 125W Phenoms are quickly replacing the 140W

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