Fast But Hot!!!
Reviewed By: Bull on 8/14/2009 Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
Pros: Delivers 3.8 to 3.9 on Stock Volts...+.75 for 4.0 Ghz.
North Bridge seems to OC better for great ram performance.
Cons: 140W Power Hog, If your Overclocking on Air then don't expect 4.1-4.2 to get stable, Water clockers should go for it!!!. To expensive for a step up over the 955.
Other Thoughts: My ambient is pretty lousy in this part of the house, and I live in Florida so I'm pressing for Winter to get here quick. These CPU's don't like Zalmans
6 out of 8 people found this review helpful. Did you?

Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided! Reviewed By: Stewie on 8/14/2009 Tech Level: high - Ownership: less than 1 day
Pros: 3.4GhZ
Quad Core
Cheaper than the other competitor on Price:Performance ratio.
Can be OC to 4ghz+ with a Third Party Cooling solution
Newest and Most powerful AMD CPU you can get as of now
Cons: 140watt cpu
Some Motherboard Bios may need to be flashed for this new CPU since 955 version is freshly new and some mobo are still not recongized yet

See Other Thoughts
Other Thoughts: This is exactly the same as 955 version. This CPU multiplier is set to 200Mhz x 17

If you already have a Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition you DO NOT NEED TO UPGRADE to 965, basicly you can set your 955 multiplier to 200mhz x 17 (Default is set on 200mhz x 16) on your Bios or overclocking software to gave the same exact 3.4ghz that 965 does.

I don't see the need to upgrade 955 to 965.

If you want to compare both 955 and 965 please check the famous Wikipedia for detail info

If you have not yet got 955 version, feel free to get this one, Is the same price as 955 before it went down by like $50 cuz of this arrival.

Oh, Watch out for the electicity bill, this beast is 140w compare to 955 125W.

Do your reasearch before buying, as mention before, May need Bios to be flash for this CPU.

This is just my opinion and advice for you guys, please don't let my word stop you from buying this

If you have 955, in my opinion i would wait til AMD made 995 edition, save your $
5 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you?

Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided!Absolute waste of money and a marketing scheme from AMD
Reviewed By: treemagnet88 on 8/13/2009 Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
Pros: -3.4GHz; at this frequency, the only way you'll bottleneck is with quad-GPU's
-6MB L3 cache (only a pro when compared to previous AMD processors)
-4GHz HyperTransport
-Unlocked multiplier (completely unnecessary, but a definite pro for new overclockers)
-Good proc if all you do is play GPU-intensive games (and like the 'retro' feel)
...and that would just about cover it.
Cons: -All this is is an overclocked, overpriced Phenom II X4. Look at those specs. Sure, it's 3.4GHz, a little faster than the 3.2GHz (and $50 cheaper) 955, but then look at the wattage and vcore... 140W at 1.4v. I can easily run my $170 945 at 3.4GHz using about 1.38v... all this is is an overclocked 955, essentially. It can't even overclock higher than that proc, and it's the same stepping. There's absolutely no reason to buy this proc over lower models unless you want to boost its market value with the name
-Much, much, much slower than Core i7's (which I'll continue to illustrate), but that's a given... the only place where the Phenom II keeps pace is with non-CPU-intensive gaming
-Much slower than any 65/45nm Intel CPU at crunching numbers; it needs to be overclocked to 4.6GHz just to calculate a 1M digits of Pi in the same 15 seconds as a 3GHz stock-clocked Core 2 Duo. This has always been an issue of AMD's, but after several new architectures, they have no excuse
Other Thoughts: -Still doesn't overclock as well as Intel competitors! A decent Phenom II on a flagship motherboard will barely be able to hit 4GHz even using obscene voltages (I'm talking 1.5v+)... An i7 920 can hit 4GHz with ease on any X58 using only a little more than 1.3v, and can go a good bit higher too... i7 950 can hit 5GHz
-Just overall poor CPU performance... in 3DMark, an i7 will easily triple a Phenom II's CPU score at any clockspeed
-6MB L3 cache has only a little more bandwidth than mediocre 1600MHz DDR3
-Memory bandwidth is about as fast as similarly priced Intel's despite memory controller

This new processor is obviously a greedy plea from AMD for more sales. They're stealing Intel's i7 model names (920, 940, 965, etc.) to label a 'new architecture' (being Deneb), where the new architecture is merely the equivalent of an overclocked previous 65nm architecture... a 3.4GHz Phenom II X4 is no faster than a 3.4GHz Phenom B3 X4, and the B3 in fact has slightly better memory bandwidth

fonte: newegg