Illustrating continued refinements in AMD’s 45nm process, the company has launched today a new spin of the Phenom II X4 965 with a lower TDP rating.

The new Phenom II is backed by the company’s brand new C3 stepping which reduces the TDP of the 3.4GHz chip from 140W to 125W. The reduction is primarily due to a reversal of the 0.05V voltage increase AMD needed to push the Deneb architecture to 3.4GHz when the 965 first launched; the new 125W X4 965s now run at just 1.35V.

The new C3 stepping also adds two notable improvements over the previous C2 stepping:

• Hardware C1E implemented for faster power state switches to preserve system performance (with BIOS update).
• Full support for four DDR3-1333 modules running at rated speeds (with BIOS update).

AMD also announced today the immediate availability of version 3.1 of the AMD OverDrive overclocking application. The new AOD release enhances overclocking capabilities with key (unspecified) processors, improves compatibility with CNQ, and offers a suite of bug fixes.

Buyers looking to nab one of the new 125W Phenom II X4 965 chips can find it under the HDZ965FBK4DGM SKU, while AMD OverDrive v3.1 can be downloaded from AMD when the site updates.

It was a veritable smörgåsbord of AMD information yesterday as vendors revealed the EOL schedule for a suite of CPUs and AMD Japan introduced the firm’s platform roadmap throughout 2011.

Kicking off the information dump, Digitimes assembled an end-of-life schedule for Phenom/Athlon II CPUs on the word of motherboard vendors. These dates are not when the CPUs will no longer be available in stores, but rather when they will no longer be sold to channel partners. One can imagine that the retail stocks will remain healthy for a while after channel sales end, but the CPUs are as good as gone within a quarter. Vendors also put their two cents in to confirm prior speculation that AMD was preparing a hexa-core desktop chip, codenamed Thuban.

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In the lexicon of acronyms frequently bandied about by geeks, gamers, and computer professionals, TDP doesn’t come up too frequently. Phrases like “How many GHz?” “How many MB of L3?” and “What’s the FSB?” are far more likely to come up in conversation than, “What’s the TDP on that chip?”

What is TDP?

But TDP, or thermal design power, is something that those with energy concerns, noise requirements, or overclocking aspirations should definitely pay attention to. The TDP of any processor describes the amount of heat dissipated during nominal operation. That heat emission is largely the product of a processor’s operating voltage and electrical efficiency; those, in turn, are dictated by clock speeds, fabrication size, and overall architecture.

For example, chips like the Intel Atom and AMD Athlon Neo are designed to use minimal power by drawing a low voltage and running at a low clock speed. Typically armed with single cores and minimal cache, these processors are intentionally simple so they top out around 15W TDP.

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Vmodtech reports that it is often possible to activate the dormant second core on an AMD Sempron processor.

The Thai computer enthusiast site has discovered that some Sempron 140 CPUs are escaping from AMD’s fabs with a fully functional second core that has been disabled to meet the demands of the market.

Users interested in attempting the unlock must be equipped with a motherboard that sports the “Advanced Clock Calibration” BIOS option. Chips that have been unlocked with the ACC option are detected as Athlon II X2 440s and appear to offer surprisingly robust overclocking– 3.7GHz in Vmodtech’s labs.

Discovery of the Sempron 140’s hidden potential makes it the third part from big green to keep a little sauce in the vest pocket; it joins the Phenom II x3 and the Athlon X2 in AMD’s growing stable of diamonds in the rough.

Before dropping a hot Grant on a Sempron and a dream, however, know that there is an equal chance that the second core has been disabled because it failed QC as an Athlon II X2.

Five months ago we reviewed the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition. Our consensus was that it’s a good chip, on par with Intel’s Q9550 but with a lower sticker price. For five months, prices have stayed consistent so our opinion stands… Sort of.

Today, we welcome the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition as the new AMD flagship processor. It has the same architecture and price as the previous chip, but is clocked a full 200mhz faster and bpoasts a higher TDP.

AMD says the Q9550 is the closest thing Intel has to compare with the new Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, but since it was neck-and-neck with the slower 955, there’s no reason to throw it head-to-head with the 965– we all know the extra 200mhz will pull the 965 ahead. So, we’re taking a different route today to see how this flagship chip compares to the Core i7 920.

Yes, we’re aware the Core i7 is more expensive. It’s a $280 powerhouse. For the $35 difference, buyers should be getting their money’s worth. We aim to see if what is approximately a 15 percent increase in price gives users at least a 15 percent increase in performance!

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AMD’s Athlon II X2 250 has been hyped a lot in the past few days considering it was released June 1, but it all makes sense seeing today’s release of the slower Athlon II X2 240 and 245 processors. The 65W AM3 processors are clocked at 2.8 and 2.9 GHz respectively. These are no-frills, meat-and-potatoes processors but should get the job done for the budget sect with the Athlon II X2 240 hitting the streets at a price under $67.

Also today, a new spin of the Phenom II X4 945 has resulted in a 95W TDP chip, shaving a good chunk off the thermal footprint in a short amount of time. Previous versions pushed a 125W TDP, so it’s clear that GLOBALFOUNDRIES is maturing their 45nm process without making any major changes to the chip design.

ASRock — the budget-conscious offshoot of Asus — has confirmed the oft-rumored Phenom II X4 965 by dropping it into the list of CPUs certified for their range of AM2+ and AM3 motherboards.

As can be seen in the following table, the 965 is a 3.4GHz Black Edition part which means unlocked multipliers abound.

Ed Bott recently touched upon a growing concern that many modern Intel CPUs will not support the highly-touted Windows XP Mode for Windows 7 as a seemingly random assortment of Intel’s current offerings do not carry hardware virtualization, a requirement of XPM. AMD processors also contain hardware virtualization in a form known as AMD-V. We’ve moved to assemble a list of modern AMD processors that can and cannot run Windows 7’s upcoming virtualized Windows XP.

Click the jump to check the table, and verify your CPU’s support by taking a look at the circled elements in CPU-Z.

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In early March we reported that it was possible to enable the fourth core of a Phenom II X3 by enabling the “advanced clock calibration” feature present in the BIOS of select motherboards. Word is now coming forward that the two dormant cores on the upcoming Athlon X2 6500/7000-series can also be activated in the same fashion.

The newest version of the Athlon X2 is based on the Kuma core, a member in the architectural family that also hosts the original Phenom X4 (Agena) and Phenom I X3 (Toliman). Athlon X2 parts are a dual-core solution fabricated from the same dies used in production of the Agena and should start hitting the market relatively soon.

As was initially the case with the Phenom II X3, many were of the belief that the Athlon X2’s dormant cores would be mechanically disabled with no hope of activation. It now appears, however, that the Phenom II X3 and the Athlon X2 are similar in that the cores can be activated with the adjustment of certain BIOS settings.

While AMD has never come forward to issue official word on this process, it is no longer believed that the inactive cores have been disabled due to faulty fabrication. A sufficiently large sampling of people have effectively proven that the cores have been deactivated only to fill the market’s demand for cheaper chips.

Though the Phenom I-based Athlon X2 units were expected in December of last year, they have thus far remained fairly elusive. Any user looking to try their hand at this procedure are advised to be on the lookout for any one Kuma-cored Athlon X2.

Correction: The original edition of this piece indicated that the Athlon X2 was cut from the same fabric as the Phenom II X3 (Heka) and the Phenom II x4 (Deneb). This is obviously incorrect. The Athlon X2 is based on the first edition of AMD’s K10 architecture which produced the Phenom (Agena) and the Phenom X3 (Toliman). This update has been corrected to reflect the accurate information.

If you were living under a rock or last week or spent the weekend cowering in fear from the Swine Flu, you might have missed Icrontic’s review of the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 processor. If you haven’t read it yet, now would be a great time to do so. For the rest of you that say “Hmm, I’m not so sure. Perhaps a second opinion should be had?” well, I’ve got you covered too. Here are some other takes on the new chip from our colleagues in the medical tech community:

• Hexus
• Guru3D
• Tech Report
• Benchmark Reviews
• AMD Zone
• I4U

When AMD released the Socket AM3 processors earlier this year, the 900-series was left out of the mix. We found the Phenom II X4 820 and Phenom II X3 710 to be pretty potent little chips, but the range topping 900-series chips, the Phenom II X4 920 and X4 940 Black Edition were stuck in the land of DDR2.

That time is over.

Today, AMD is releasing its new flagship processor, the Socket AM3 Phenom II X4 955. This new Phenom II is fully backwards compatible with AM2+ motherboards, but brings a DDR3 memory controller and a boost in clock speed over the previous top Phenom II, the X4 940 Black Edition. Also joining the Phenom II X4 955 BE is the Phenom II X4 945, a lower clocked and multiplier-locked version.

The new chip should hit shelves today priced at $245. This puts it at an awkward, but strategic position in the marketplace. Intel’s similarly priced Core 2 Q9450 was recently discontinued, so the chip has no direct competition at its price-point. Instead, it looks up Intel’s line to the Q9550, a $280 chip whose price nears that of the Core i7 920. AMD has set its sights high while keeping the price low enough that the chip doesn’t compete directly price-wise with the Nehalem.

AMD graciously sent the Phenom II X4 955 to us, along with a DDR3 motherboard and memory so we can test this update to the Dragon platform for ourselves. Unfortunately for today, MSI has not released a BIOS to support the new processor for our test bench, so we are unable to test its DDR2 performance. We did, however, secure a Q9550 for DDR2 and DDR3 comparison, giving us a look at how the processor performs compared to past models we’ve tested.

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Tech Report tests four new Socket AM3 motherboards. Your Phenom II wants DDR3.