Phenom II X4 955 - 3.2GHz
In our review of the Phenom II X4 940 processor we saw that the new 45nm processors looked much improved from both a performance and overclocking stand point. It is hard to believe it has been five months since AMD announced the Phenom II X4 940 processor, but it has been. Late last month AMD announced the Phenom II 955 Black Edition processor, which is more than just a 200MHz speed bump as brings socket AM3 support to the very top of AMD's desktop offerings.
This processor is based off the same 45nm 'Deneb' core that the previous Phenom II processors use, but with a few tweaks and a new memory controller. This new memory controller allows the processor to run both DDR2 and DDR3 memory kits, which is good news for AMD as up to a 5% performance boost can be seen when running DDR3 memory on Phenom II processors. What is even better news is that AM3 processors are 100% backwards compatible with motherboards using AM2+ sockets, which means you do not have to run out and buy a brand new Socket AM3 motherboard and a DDR3 memory kit to upgrade to one of these processors.
