AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition

As we mentioned in our previous review of the Phenom 9900 this could really be a great architecture if AMD could find a way to ramp up the clock speed and get to 45nm but without that they cannot compete with Intel on the high-end. Add in the errata problem and patch performance hit and Phenom definitely could have been launched smoother. However, we have yet to encounter the problem and vast majority of users will never reach this either so it isn't a huge drawback but it's something that AMD hopes to fix in silicon as soon as possible and is too bad but slipped through. The Phenom 9600 Black Edition is to be introduced with no price premium over a normal Phenom 9600 which is great news, however, and should hopefully show up at retailers soon. As long as you disable the patch if you upgrade your motherboard's BIOS to a revision with it then the Phenom is a good solution and upgrade for those already with AM2 motherboards and their graphics division is on track now more than they've been in the past year with cards that can compete very well against Nvidia things turning up. What we all want and hope though is that AMD can get processors out soon with the TLB problem fixed in a hardware revision with no performance penalty and hopefully we can start seeing the clockspeed increase as well as 45nm parts sometime next year and we'll have much more competition on our hands and a better environment all around.

We can in all good conscience recommend this chip to current owners of Socket AM2 boards that are running AMD 64 X2 processors, as this would be an easy upgrade assuming your motherboard has a BIOS patch that supports the Phenom. Currently Intel is still "King of the Hill" in both performance and bang for the buck. With the forthcoming release of the remainder of the Penryn 45nm family of chips it's likely Intel will wear that crown for some time to come.

Overall then, I have to give AMD suitable kudos for bringing the unlocked multiplier to the masses at a great price point with the Phenom 9600 Black Edition, but I fear that given both the overclocking and stock performance capabilities of this CPU shown in our testing, that claim to fame is little more than a novelty at the end of the day. While the Phenom's performance is a step up from the Athlon 64 X2, and the 790FX chipset seems to be pretty solid, it only takes a very quick look at the grass on the other, Intel-grazing, side of the fence to see that it's much, much greener right now - Ironic, given AMD's choice of corporate colours.

AMD’s Phenom 9600 Black Edition is a fast, enthusiast-oriented chip. It’s priced attractively and makes a great entry point for power users looking at quad-core solutions. And the Phenom is complemented by an exceptional piece of core logic in the 790FX chipset. But what does AMD’s flagship desktop offering deliver that you won’t find elsewhere? We’re thinking. Ah—how about an unlocked multiplier? That’s a good start. And what about OverDrive? Another solid point that’ll be even better once AMD irons out the bugs. The latest version of the software incorporates concessions for unlocked multipliers with the Auto Clock feature, making overclocking even easier at the entry level.

Is the Phenom 9600 Black Edition worth it? Well, its the same price as the regular Phenom 9600, so if you were going to get a Phenom 9600, you may as well get the Black Edition for some relatively painless overclocking to Phenom 9900 levels without having to increase FSB speeds.