AMD Phenom II X4 975 Black Edition Review – overclocking performance

No retail packaging for our early review samples, just the processor in a simple protected AMD branded green case. We wouldn't want the reference cooler anyway, because with this overclocking guide we need something considerably more substantial.

The X4 975 Black Edition looks identical to the previous Phenom II 970, which isn't a surprise, because architecturally, it is.

The X4 975 Black Edition is clocked at 3.6ghz and features 128kb of Level 1 cache, 2MB of Level 2 cache (512kb per core) and 6MB of Level 3 cache. It is built on a 45nm manufacturing process and has an integrated dual channel memory controller with support up to DDR3-1333mhz. This is AMD's official stance, however 1600mhz+ memory support is easily achieveable with motherboards currently on the market. All our testing today will be with Kingston DDR3 memory set at 1600mhz.

AMD rate the processor voltage at 1.125v – 1.4 volts, however we will delve more into this later.

System validation is available over here.

While hardly a great indication of detailed system performance, we always like to include the Windows Experience Index result, mainly just out of curiousity.

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