Phenom II X6 1055T and 1090T review

Overclocking Phenom II X6

If you decide to start an overclocking session with the Phenom processor; typically you are much better off with the BE editions (CPU multiplier unlocked). The processor we are using in this test is obviously the Phenom II X6 1090T. This processor has an unlocked multiplier.

We now can overclock in several ways, modern motherboards often have automated overclock features .. in case of the ASUS Crosshair IV formula motherboard we can flick a setting in the BIOS and after seconds it's already running at 3.7 GHz.

Alternatively you can use AMD's Windows compatible Overdrive interface that allows very easy overclocking of the Phenom II processors. The new revision is version 3.2 and it's one of the best tweak utilities out there.

For this review we used the latest 3.2 beta which has some cool new options.

• Download AMD Overdrive here

In AMD Overdrive you can simply max out the CPU voltage towards ~1.55V and increase the multiplier. Play around with it; don't be afraid of a crash. Now what you can do best with AMD overdrive is to determine how high you can overclock and then transfer the final stable in the bios to make it permanent (if you would like that of course).

We however overclocked manually through the BIOS -- the results were really dandy as we took it towards 4 GHz quite easily -- and again, this overclock was managed with a simple OCZ Vendetta air-cooler.

Check it out:

Here's an overclock at 4 GHz 100% stable. We boosted Voltage towards 1.40v in the BIOS and simply applied a multiplier of 20. Temperatures are now higher, but really acceptable for an AMD Phenom II at 44 Degrees C / 111 F. Again, and I can't stress this enough -- we are only using a 35 USD air based Vendetta cooler here.

We finalized a stable overclock (on all six cores) at 4100 MHz with 1,425v, and to proof it was 100% stable all our benchmarks today will reflect that overclock.

One word of advice, AMD processors start to really consume a lot of power once you overclock them. At 4100 MHz (all 6 cores stressed) we consumed 273 Watt, that's an additional 86 watt for an extra 900 MHz.