Final thoughts and rating
AMD has no choice but to press on with the Phenom line of desktop chips until the much-awaited successor, known as Bulldozer, appears later this year.
Heavily congested pricing in the £100-£200 segment means that at the upper end of the scale the six-core Thuban Phenom II X6 processors rule the roost. This is problematic for the four-core Phenom II X4 975 Black Edition chip, priced at £155, because its lack of cores are telling when the going gets tough.
What's more, light-load scenarios mean that the Thuban's Turbo CORE technology kicks in and takes much of the benefit away from the 3.6GHz-clocked X4 model.
Adding fuel to the fire, Intel's new Sandy Bridge chips are excellent performers from almost angle, so while the X4 975 BE is a solid offering, a number of factors combine to make it an average chip in Q1 2011.
Bottom line: the 3.6GHz Phenom II X6 975 Black Edition processor would have been great in January 2010. Fast forward and a year and its appeal is diminished, if not quite extinguished.
The Good
Fastest quad-core chip from AMD
Excellent chipset compatibility
The Bad
Phenom II X6 and Core 2011 processors are better
Power-draw higher than rival's
Based on old technology
HEXUS Rating
AMD Phenom II X4 975 Black Edition
HEXUS Where2Buy
TBC.
HEXUS Right2Reply
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