Although the release of the AMD Phenom processor series took place back in November of last year, roughly four months ago now, the highly touted quad-core processor has received limited action so far in the computer world and a lot of negative press coverage for reasons we have documented well enough during all this time.

In our hands-on experience with the first wave of Phenoms, we didn't think the situation was as dire as many made it out to be. But regardless, it was a combination of a poor product launch with corporate financial trouble that raised the company to the spotlight.

In terms of performance, AMD has stated that the new B3 processors will be no faster than the original Phenom X4 CPUs without the TLB erratum fix enabled on a clock-for-clock basis. Therefore the Phenom X4 9600 and the new Phenom X4 9650, for example, should be no different in terms of performance. Just as well that should mean that today’s flagship Phenom, the X4 9850, should sit somewhere between the Phenom 9700 and 9900 processors that we reviewed earlier this year.

It will be interesting to see how the 9850 stacks up against the rest of the Phenom family and of course, Intel's Q6600.

http://www.techspot.com/review/93-am...black-edition/

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After learning AMD's new 9850 with its B3 stepping had arrived, I was hoping it would do well. I was disappointed with the test results. I think I'll stick with Intel. In fact, Intel has their new Quad Q9300 now for only about $320 and it's probably 50% faster than AMD's 9850:

TechSpot might want to include the Q9300 in their test results. I'm sure it would test much faster.

I just installed my $198 Q6600 (FRYS.COM deal.) I never even booted Windows at 2.4ghz. It's at 3.5ghz.in a Tforce 965PT (better mobo on the way, 4ghz!)

You didn't show power numbers. I'm sure they are high.

I guess this is a good thing, or at least it is a step in the right direction. I hope 45nm is a lot better.

Cypherdude, we will review the the Q9300 (or any of the newer quad cores) as soon as we can get one, it wasn't just in time for this particular review.

That said, the Q6600 matches the price of this Phenom and thus made for the perfect comparison - not that we consider this a coincidence.

The newer Intel quads are just becoming available and are bit more expensive (and likely a bit faster, too).