Phenom II X4 965 BE revision C3 review - Final Words & Conclusion

The Verdict

AMD lately has been flamed a little bit about the high power consumption of their more high-end processors. Quite honestly, everybody in the high-end segment really doesn't care about 15 Watts extra. None the less, it's good to see AMD address the issue as lower power consumption is always better.

Why did AMD launch the Phenom II X4 965BE C3 revision processor you might ask? Well obviously for the aforementioned reasons, power consumption is a hot topic these days and as such AMD did good by releasing this C3 revision. There's another reason we feel... the more high-end segment of notebooks could now be equipped with a processor like shown today as, obviously not only will this processor get the C3 revision, no, most of the X4 lineup will receive the same treatment and yeah, the new enforced C1E really hints at that.

Me personally, I like the C3 revision for what it is. A more power efficient design is obviously always really good and in this case it just does not hurt performance whatsoever. To the contrary, this SKU is as good as its predecessor, and here's the kicker... when it comes to overclocking the C3 revision really is even better. With our budget 80 EUR motherboard and armed with an OCZ Vendetta cooler we took the processor towards a whopping 4000 MHz instantly. All we did was cram 1.55 volts into the processor and upped the multiplier to 20 and we were good to go. After this range better cooling is required though. But it definitely is a testimony of what this processor is all about.

Gaming then -- as this article has shown, the new Radeon HD 5870 is of course as beast and as such we now finally move onto a stage where the GPU requires faster processors. The Phenom II X4 965BE is definitely good enough to power up such a stallion of a GPU, but as the Core i7 series proves, it can be done better. Up-to say, a Radeon HD 4890 or GeForce GTX 285, you'll hardly notice a difference processor wise. But the new high-end generation GPUs or multi-GPU solutions do like faster processors, and as you have been able to see, the Core i7 does outclass the Phenom II X4 965BE.

If however you stick to the lower segment of high-end gaming (graphics card wise)... then the Phenom II X4 965BE is a perfect match. You can find the Phenom II X4 965BE for sub-200 USD at most e-tailers and in combo with say, an AMD 785 motherboard, as such it offers grand value.

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Bottom line: Progress is what it is all about and AMD has certainly been making a lot of it in the last year or so, we feel the Phenom II X4 965BE is a really tasty quad-core processor for budget minded overclockers and PC afficionados, you'll absolutely like what it brings to the table. It's a product that makes a lot of sense and as such comes very much recommended - now with an even better energy efficiency and power envelope.