We received the Phenom X4 9850 "Black Edition" processor, meaning that Black Edition equals the fact that AMD ships it unlocked and primed for overclocking.

Thanks to the Phenom X4 9850 BE unlocked multiplier, overclocking is just easy, increase the multiplier. Now we overclocked using the AMD Overdrive software, and I have to tell you ... I love that software, download it here.

We left the voltage at standard to see how far it would go, and we effortlessly hit 2.7 GHz stable at the default voltage. Moving to 2.8 GHz required a voltage jump to 1.30V, this setting also allowed us to boot at 2.9 GHz. Unfortunately from there on Prime95 was displaying errors, meaning computation faults here and there. Increasing and decreasing the Voltages did not help. The temps at that point rose over 60 Degrees C, which is a lot for an AMD processor. Since we only used a baseline Akasa air cooler, we suspect that's the culprit. the potential however is much higher.

We also increase the voltage towards 1.5V, quite hefty and dangerous, but we boot into Windows with cores at 3.2 GHz just fine. So in retrospect, overclocking with the Phenom X4 9850 "Black Edition" is quite good. Getting it 100% stable however requires good cooling. Whatever you might think, very recommended is a Black-Edition processor with the unlock multiplier, as overclocking by BUS speed is as always with AMD, much more difficult.