AMD has released the latest member of the quad-core socket AM3 family—the Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition. As with all of the other Deneb “Black Edition” CPUs, the Phenom II X4 980 has a 4x512KB L2 cache, 6MB L3 cache, and an unlocked multiplier. The 980BE’s multiplier of 18.5x means a clock speed of 3.7GHz, making it 100MHz faster than AMD’s previous top quad CPU, the 975 Black Edition.
While we don’t have a new round of benchmarks to show off, in January we reviewed the Phenom II x4 975 Black Edition and compared it with the 970 Black Edition. Since these two CPUs also share a 100MHz difference, performance for the 980 Black Edition should be fairly easy to determine.
The 980 Black Edition is set to replace the 975 Black Edition at $195 with the other Deneb CPUs dropping down a price slot.
| Model | Frequency | Multiplier | TDP | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition | 3.7GHz | 18.5 | 125W | $195 |
| Phenom II X4 975 Black Edition | 3.6GHz | 18.0 | 125W | $175 |
| Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition | 3.5GHz | 17.5 | 125W | $155 |
| Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition | 3.4GHz | 17.0 | 125W | $135 |
| Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition | 3.2GHz | 16.0 | 125W | $115(?) |
Llano and Zambezi are still slated for this quarter, but so far there isn’t a publicly acknowledged release date for either one. If you have to build a Socket AM3 system right now and want a fast quad core CPU, the Phenom II X4 980 is probably a good choice.
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