Member Reviews: Phenom II X4 965 Black AM3 3.4Ghz 512KB 45NM 125W 4000MHZ

I bought this for my third build this year after having an 1100t 6-core, and an FX-8120 previously. The 1100t was sweet but the fx was a dud, to say the least. This processor outperforms them both in every test and application that I have thrown at it! I cool it with the stock cooler that came with the FX (it's beefier than the one that came with this one) and I'm running 4.2 gig without overheating it. When I swapped the cooler from my fx, a Zalman 9900 max, I could get 4.45 gig and still not hit 76 celcius... wow! My video editing encodes and burns movies in 14 to 23 minutes depending on the size of the file. I really regret not sticking with the phenom on ALL of my builds but we live...

This is a great 4-core CPU for those on a budget. I've been using Intel since the Pentium 4 and decided on a change. what set this CPU apart from the other Phenoms is its balance between cores and speed. you get 3.4Ghz (which is great speed for the games I play) and 4 cores for around $120 US. the numbers break down to: (1) 825Mhz core = ~$30 , Not a bad deal I've heard the AMD bashing going around and I must say that after overclocking and under-clocking it (sometimes multiple times in the same day) this chip hasn't failed me yet. and for what I do with it, I can't see any reason to shell out more money on an Intel equivalent.

When I purchased this item, I was moving up from an old Phenom x4 9850 Black Edition which would not let me get above 3.2ghz and stay stable. This chip was a great buy for the time and it has suited my needs (Folding, Transcoding, Gaming, Non-Hardware Encryption, etc.) very nicely considering that even in March of 2010, it was seriously outgunned by comparably priced Intel chips. At 4ghz under water, the C3 revision of this chip is a very good performer for the price. If you build low-end systems that are not going to be used in heavily-threaded applications, but still need a bit of brawn for daily use, this chip offers some decent performance and OC flexibility. I was able to get this...