AMD Phenom II X4 965 gets a new revision, lower TDP

[Jos]

AMD has unveiled a new revision (RB-C3) of the Phenom II X4 965 processor that comes with a reduction in its TDP rating -- just 125W versus the original’s 140W. This thermal improvement is expected to yield greater overclocking headroom for AMD's flagship CPU, which remains a black edition part priced at $195.

Arriving a bit earlier than anticipated, the renewed socket AM3 processor maintains its 3.4GHz clock speed, 512KB of L2 cache of per core for a total of 2MB, and a shared L3 cache of 6MB. In addition to the lower TDP, there are a few other tweaks, such as official support for four DDR3 modules at 1333 MHz, and improved C1E support to allow systems to switch power states faster with little to no impact to performance.

At its current price point the Phenom II X4 965 should directly compete with Intel's Core i5 750 -- though as we've seen in our own tests the latter seems like a better deal overall. That said, for those who already own an AM2+/AM3 motherboard the new Phenom II X4 965 might be worth an upgrade. AMD's new RB-C3 revision is also expected to bring a 95W Phenom II X4 955 and probably a new flagship down the road.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/36823-amd-phenom-ii-x4-965-gets-a-new-revision-lower-tdp.html

 

[Kibaruk]

Great for long-time saving some electricity.

 

[freedomthinker]

Good in our modern financial crisis This could definitely be a life saver . But still i would wish that AMD would step up their game and try to actually compete with Intel. Hehe...

 

[red1776]

Good in our modern financial crisis This could definitely be a life saver . But still i would wish that AMD would step up their game and try to actually compete with Intel. Hehe...

I agree, AMD had better have a new architecture in the works. has anyone done the calculation on the savings from going to a 125W from a 140W? i think that's only about $11 a year?

 

[buttus]

This would be a great home theatre CPU. The heat and electrical savings would be very attractive.

 

[MBK]

Pffft, if the i5 750 is still the way to go for a new PC, AMD really need to pull their finger out. It's all well and good to suppy good mid range chips and target a mid range market, but i know i'll be getting an Intel processor and mobo next, because they seem to be producing the more powerful chips. Albeit the future may see changes, especially with Intel's apparent stagnation, having said that, the i5/7 architecture is relatively new (no?) plus, Intel overtook AMD, it may flip again...maybe.

 

[klepto12]

i dont see amd coming out with anything greater than the i7 cpus but they may bring out a competitor to the i7 they are just to far behind to make up the difference in manufacturing processes to beat intel.

 

[red1776]

I don't think they are behind in the manufacturing process, i think they rested on they're laurels after the advent of hyper-transport and need a new architecture.

 

[Xclusiveitalian]

I notice as of lately alot of hardware revisions have improved TDP, and prices actually are lower, its all good!

 

[psycholexx]

Intel could be a better deal, if you buy a new system, or at least a new motherboard (if you can find a cheap one ), but f you have a good ol' reliable platform, like i do , for instance, Asus M3A78 (solid capacitors, AMD 770, 140W support, cheap DDR2 memory, i have 6 gigs, by the way) a powerful Phenom is a not so expensive way to get your old PC to battle aside of new platforms....

 

[limpangel]

red1776 said:
I agree, AMD had better have a new architecture in the works. has anyone done the calculation on the savings from going to a 125W from a 140W? i think that's only about $11 a year?

I don't think is about power savings (overall the system will be down around 10W used at 100%). Also the TDP of 125W or 140W is like an absolute maximum which can be reached when doing really serious stuff like 3D rendering or video encoding and maybe high res video gamming (IF the game is optimized for quad cores). Some noticeable power savings could be made during everyday use due to the improved C1E support, but not enough to make a really huge improvement over the last 965 chip.

My guess is that this revision was made to expand the upgrade availability, because a lot of people own mobos which support a maximum of 125W TDP. Everybody knows that AMD was allways upgrade friendly. In 2010 I'll be able to stick an AMD 6 core in my 2008 AM2+ mobo without a problem. Can't say the same thing for Intel: Core 2 Duo -> LGA 775; Core i5 -> LGA 1156; Core i7 -> LGA 1366; Core i9 -> who knows !?!

 

[Puiu]

buttus said:
This would be a great home theatre CPU. The heat and electrical savings would be very attractive.

It's still an too much for an home theater. An Athlon II X3/X4 CPU is much better with a HD4650 video card. You don't need expensive parts. Keep it simple and cheap. You can always upgrade after a few years (2-3 years) if it's necessary.

 

[JMMD]

Anything to reduce heat and electricity is great. If I was building an HTPC I would definitely be going for one of the lower power CPUs.

 

[swilllx2p]

I might consider upgrading to this actually. I already have a motherboard that will support it, and personally i'd much rather spend money on amd stuff than intel.

 

[fref]

This won't do AMD much good if you ask me. They need a new high-end product that can compete with Intel's offering. A new chip revision that saves a few dollars per year (and that's for someone who leaves his PC on 24/7) isn't convincing enough for me.

They should put their money on developing a real Core i7 killer instead of wasting it on chip revisions.

 

[JieMan]

I don't think the tdp much matters when your overclocking if your trying to save power, I would buy this even if it was 200w and ran at 4.5Ghz but its not likely..

I am happy AMD finally put the crap-storm behind them when they released the PII it was a very welcomed friend for overclockers. I for instance was able to go to 3.9 Ghz during bench marks and an everyday running speed of 3.65Ghz at 1.46v and low temps on idle and load 40i - 55l Celsius from a 3Ghz stock speed, thats awesome ... going from my athlon x2 that was able to go from 3.0ghz stock to 3.2 overclock, really showed me the improvements they have made.

Overclocking to me is a hobby, I love benching and seeing my progress. If your anything like me it can get a little nerve racking at times I like to keep data as I go and when you start getting blue screens or other problems and I'm comparing data I have written down but then forget I need some work on the PC so I have to reset bios to boot, get what I needed reboot to bios and start tweaking all again. Sometimes overclocking takes a while for me as I find somethign in bios I want to change and need more info on it so I have to start up and go online... I would suggest any serious overclocker have a second PC or laptop handy to keep your work projects, and go online when your messing with bios.

I know Intel offers some advantages when it comes to this but AMD's black edition is the simplest and most user friendly overclocking chip out there. I sadly am unable to reach 4.0Ghz on my rig I am happy with performance tho as I am into gaming, my setup consists of two Gtx280's in sli ...during testing and benchmarks the range to let these cards breath is between 3.4-3.8 Ghz after that the increase in gpu performance isn't much... so even tho 4.0 -4.2 seems really cool and all ,, its really unneeded.

I am crossing my fingers for the six core PII.

 

[PUTALE]

it's nice to see amd are dropping the cpu power consumption. Now if they can really catch up the core i7, then it would be nice. Hopefully by the time 6 cores comes out amd will get some good performance increase. Now the problem is that software makers need to take the multi-core advantage so we can really use our cpu power.

 

[klepto12]

imo the 6 core cpus will be not be as powerful as there 4 core brothers because of heat and the fact that they will all be on the same die they will more than likely be lower clocked than all of amd's tops cpu's right now but will have 6 cores versus 4.

 

[JieMan]

imo the 6 core cpus will be not be as powerful as there 4 core brothers because of heat and the fact that they will all be on the same die they will more than likely be lower clocked than all of amd's tops cpu's right now but will have 6 cores versus 4.

Right but even if its released at say 2.6Ghz range I would be good as I am only planning to go as high as 3.6 anyways anything more really isn't necessary with my gpu configuration and its something the PII is good for, and with lower heat and power on this revision then we might just have enough room to play with if its implemented on the sixpack,

 

[pmshah]

I really wonder how people think in terms of getting the most for their buck.

Bringing the TDP down from 140 to 125 watts is a saving of 10 % power consumption in the CPU but ONLY when it is being utilised at 100% capacity. What about the rest of the power consuming peripherals? There are other consumers of power within the PC like your HDD which consumes app. 20 watts of power as compared to a laptop drive which consumes only about 2.5 watts. Add inefficiency of the SMPS and it increases further. What about the chipset, the graphic card, etc.

If the time consumed for completing a job is higher by 10 % the costs can be enormous, salary, H/AC, lighting, and what have you.

What might be a better solution is to have a system where individual cores are completely switched off when not required which will be a more efficient way of saving energy, like having the PC on 24/7 to download torrents and other large files. This job is well handled by even the old time 100 mhz 486s.