AMD is said to be on the verge of delivering a higher-clocked successor to the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition. The news was reported over the weekend by Expreview, which spotted details of the still unannounced CPU on ASRock's website. Apparently, the so-called AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition will have the same amount of cache and the same 125W power envelope as the 955, just with a higher 3.4GHz clock speed.
In terms of performance, the extra 200MHz will help AMD compete against Intel's Core 2 Quad offerings and perhaps even the Core i7 920, which currently sells for around $280. While no pricing information for the new part is mentioned, some expect it to launch at the same $245 AMD currently charges for its flagship Phenom II X4 955. The company might also choose to price the new 3.4GHz processor closer to the $320 Core 2 Quad Q9650 - at least initially, before dropping prices down to more competitive levels when Intel starts delivering Lynnfield processors later in 2009.