First preview of Phenom X3 720 BE

Tested and overclocked to 3.7GHz

The guys at Donanimhaber.com managed to get their hands on AMD's Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition CPU and test it on both AM2+ DDR2 and AM3 DDR3 motherboard. They even tried to overclock it and the score are very impressive, as they managed to get it all the way from 2.8GHz to 3.7GHz.

The most interesting part is the DDR2 versus DDR3 tests, as the DDR3 memory doesn't bring any significant performance gains, especially if you compare DDR2 and DDR3 prices. The Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition should be launched on February 9th and as a part of the Black Edition series it has unlocked multipliers. Other specifications include a base clock of 2.8GHz, 1.5MB of L2 and 6MB of L3 cache and a TDP of 95 Watt's. According to what we see from these results, AMD might give Intel a run for its money, at least with this Phenom II X3 720 BE which can be found listed at around €140 in Europe.

You can find more here

AMD 45nm Phenom II analysis and review

Based on the company's 45nm manufacturing process and brought to market a couple of months after the launch of the similar server part, Shanghai, AMD's Phenom II quad-core processors promise higher clock speeds, to better compete against Intel's Core 2 Quad CPUs.

Phenom II 920 and 940, released at clock-speeds of 2.8GHz and 3.0GHz, respectively, will be available to buy in a couple of weeks. We investigate whether the advancements over incumbent Phenom X4 are enough to make them serious contenders in the <£250 market.

Processors	Cores	Architecture	Process	Clock speed	L2 cache (total)	L3 cache	Memory-controller speed	Voltage	TDP	etailer pricing
AMD Phenom II 940 Black Edition	4	K10	45nm	3.0GHz	2MB	6MB	1.8GHz	0.875-1.5V	125W	£215
AMD Phenom II 920	4	K10	45nm	2.8GHz	2MB	6MB	1.8GHz	0.875-1.5V	125W	£175
AMD Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition	4	K10	65nm	2.6GHz	2MB	2MB	2.0GHz	1.05-1.3V	125W	£140
AMD Phenom X4 9850 BE	4	K10	65nm	2.5GHz	2MB	2MB	2.0GHz	1.05-1.3V	125W	£130
AMD Phenom X4 9750	4	K10	65nm	2.4GHz	2MB	2MB	1.8GHz	1.1-1.3V	95W	£120
AMD Phenom X4 9650	4	K10	65nm	2.3GHz	2MB	2MB	1.8GHz	1.1-1.3V	95W	£112
AMD Phenom X4 9350e	4	K10	65nm	2.0GHz	2MB	2MB	1.8GHz	1.0-1.125V	65W	£110
AMD Phenom X3 8750	3	K10	65nm	2.4GHz	1.5MB	2MB	1.8GHz	1.05-1.25V	95W	£99
AMD Phenom X3 8650	3	K10	65nm	2.4GHz	1.5MB	2MB	1.8GHz	1.05-1.25V	95W	£82
AMD Phenom X3 8450	3	K10	65nm	2.1GHz	1.5MB	2MB	1.8GHz	1.2-1.3V	95W	£75
AMD Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition	2	K10	65nm	2.7GHz	1MB	2MB	1.8GHz	1.2-1.25V	95W	£65?
AMD Athlon X2 7550	2	K10	65nm	2.5GHz	1MB	2MB	1.8GHz	1.2-1.25V	95W	£55?
AMD Athlon X2 6400+ BE	2	K8	65nm	3.2GHz	2MB	N/A	1GHz	1.35-1.4V	125W	£72
AMD Athlon X2 6000+	2	K8	65nm	3.1GHz	1MB	N/A	1GHz	1.1-1.4V	89W	£63