AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Review – overclocking performance

The AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition is not a launch that many people have been waiting on with baited breath, as it is a core clock boosted X6 1090T Black Edition. An evolutionary release – not a new design from the ground up, we will have to wait a while longer for that.

Perhaps we were lucky with our sample but we found that 4.3ghz was easily achievable with high end air cooling and the potential is there for 4.4ghz+, if you are willing to risk 1.6 volts (or more) with a quality watercooling configuration. Our 1090T samples have always had trouble getting to 4.1ghz and beyond. As far as we are concerned, this is AMD's finest processor to date and in certain situations can match, or beat Intel's Core i7 950 Quad Core, which is slightly more expensive.

Cryptography performance is exceptional, showing that for specific mathematical calculations such as Hash algorithms and security related encryption and decryption the AMD X6 1100T makes for a very low cost, high performance choice.

3D encoding performance is also an area in which the X6 1100T shines, with the Cinema 4D engine showing real world gains with the extra physical cores, rather than Intel's Hyperthreaded boosted configuration. The Intel Core i7 950 is a fantastic processor, but within the realms of multi threaded physical processing, the X6 1100T is more than a match for Intel's mid range chip.

AMD are always wanting to focus on the price points they can achieve and £225 for this processor is surely one of the bargains of the year. Sure, the 1090T has dropped to £200 now, and the 1055T can be picked up for £150 – but the 1100T is such a straightforward processor to overclock that 4.1ghz is easily reached with minimal effort. If you however have little interest in overclocking and don't need to squeeze every drop of performance from your CPU then the 1055T is a wise choice – 6 cores for £150 is hard to ignore.

We have been exceptionally impressed with this latest offering from AMD – they have yet to mount an attack on the high end Intel Core i7 processors such as the 970 and 980x, but in the lucrative mid range market their X6 Black Edition processors continue to shine.

KitGuru says: 6 unlocked physical cores for £225: 4.3ghz+ is easily possible – time to upgrade to a Noctua NH D14.

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