Phenom II X4 965 BE processor review test

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Phenom II temperatures

Phenom II temperatures & Overclocking

If you decide to start an overclocking session with the Phenom processor; typically you are so much better off with the BE editions (CPU multiplier is unlocked), and the combo of an AMD 790 FX/GX based mainboard. In today's test we will overclock the Phenom II X4 965BE.

The key to the 790FX/GX feature set is AMD's Windows compatible OverDrive interface that allows very easy overclocking of the Phenom II (and last gen Phenom X4 Black Edition) processors. It's one of the best tweak utilities out there and thanks to AMD's recently introduced Advanced Clock Calibration technology the results on a 790 chipset based platform will certainly be good.

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition

For this review we used the new 3.02 version which has some new cool options.

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition

Phenom II processors can complement the 790FX/GX chipset's overclocking capabilities very well. Example: A Phenom II (BE) can be pushed towards 3.6 GHz relatively easily on just an air cooler. With real good air-cooling or water-cooling you should be able to reach 3.8-4.0 GHz. And as many news posts have shown, in demonstrations some freaks were able to super-cool the processor with LN2 and clocked it close to a geeky 6.0 GHz.

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition

This is the processor running at the default 3.4 GHz. Temperature wise the Phenom II generation processors are just really good. Here you see the 965BE processor with all four logical processors stressed maxed out at roughly 54 Degrees C/ 128 F.

This processor was cooled down with a 35 USD OCZ Vendetta 2 CPU cooler.

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