Phenom given a second chance - B3's here
Comment | Print | Email to a Friend | Font Size: AAWhen AMD's first crop of Phenom processors were unveiled over four months ago, they quickly proved to be somewhat underwhelming and not up to the standard many were expecting. Furthermore, the infamous TLB bug reared its ugly head and gave people even more of a reason not to go near Phenom, not to mention the severely limited clockspeed ceiling these first run of processors were showing.
Fast forward to today and we see the curtain lifted on an all new revision of Phenom quad-core processors, known as the 'B3' stepping. These refined CPUs promise to be ridden of all the issues that were plaguing the original lineup and currently comprise the Phenom X4 9550, 9650, 9750 and 9850 models running at 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5GHz respectively. Whether or not this is enough of a change to put the pressure on Intel still remains to be seen.
Early coverage of these new processors in action is showing up around the web; you can find it all via the below links :-
- XBit Labs
- Hot Hardware
- Hexus
- Tech Report
- PC Perspective
- LegitReviews
- ComputerShopper
- Anandtech
- FiringSquad
Tech Report:-
Most of you are aware by now of the problems with AMD's quad-core Phenom processors. As we have chronicled closely, the chips were late to market and debuted with unexpectedly low clock frequencies. As a result, their performance was underwhelming compared to Intel's Core 2 offerings. Worse yet, shortly before its release, AMD discovered a bug in the Phenom that could cause a system hang in certain, very specific circumstances. This so called "TLB erratum" caused AMD to cease shipments of the Phenom's server-oriented counterpart, the Opteron 2300 series, but the firm went ahead with its plans to sell Phenoms in consumer PCs. For those systems, AMD offered a workaround in the form of a BIOS update, but the cure was arguably worse than the affliction, causing substantial performance hit in many applications.
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