AMD Phenom II X4 Black 980 

To start out the overclocking process with the AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition we simply increased the multiplier by .5 at a time.

In the last 2+ years AMD has increased the speed of the Phenom II X4 processors 700MHz which is nearly 25!

The AMD Phenom II X4 980 BE saw an improvement of 59.4 seconds in wPrime when it was overclocked to 4545MHz.

The XFX Radeon HD 6950 graphics cards were run with 11.4 CATALYST suite drivers.

3.7 GHz is 100MHz less than what we were able to overclock our original Phenom II X4 940 to back in January '09.

The AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition uses a 200MHz front side bus and an x18.5 multiplier for a final clock speed of 3.7GHz.

Pound for pound, it delivers excellent performance.

Benchmark Results: The AMD Phenom II 980 Black Edition did a fine job keeping up with all of the processors today.

Benchmark Results: The AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition fell right into the middle of the pack.

Benchmark Results: The results from Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty seem to favor the Intel Processors.

Benchmark Results: The AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition processor memory bandwidth was right where we expected it to perform.

Benchmark Results: The AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition processor has similar performance to the Intel Core i7 950, at least for the first pass.

AMD has taken the 'Deneb' core architecture and stretched it out as far as they could.

It's been over two years since the original AMD Phenom II X4 processor was released using the 'Deneb' core architecture and, believe it or not, the core architecture remains exactly the same.

AMD says that the 980BE is a great general purpose CPU for enthusiasts and gamers alike because it has the cores, the cache and the frequency needed for a wide range of tasks.