AMD Phenom II X4 975 Black Edition Processor

This quad core desktop processor is manufactured on the 45 nm manufacturing process and is connected with motherboards using a AM2/AM3 socket. The “ Black edition” suffix denotes that overclocking can be achieved out of the processor as and when required. The processor is built at a stock speed of 3.6 GHz. The 4 cores of the processor have L3 cache of 6 MB to be shared, which is designed to step up the performance by providing ready data to the processor.

PCMark05 gave our processor a CPU score of 9381 which is very good as compared with some other quad core processors within this class. A score of 16417 in 3DMark is amongst the best for this class of quad core processors. We also ran the CineBench R10 benchmark on the setup. The benchmark billed the processor at 11747 CB-CPU which is much more than the Athlon processor, again from AMD, reviewed in this issue.

These scores better the performance of the Intel quad core processors (1st generation) , reviewed in the past by PCQuest. The review is available at http://ld2.in/158. Overall, these benchmarking scores display strong graphics and productivity performance.

Bottomline: Impressive all round performance but at a steep price tag makes it suitable for high end desktops.