Phenom 2 X4 965 (125w TDP)

Introduction

AMD has a long tradition of improving already good products. In this case they have reworked the Phenom 2 X4 965 BE from 140w to 125w. What does that mean to the end user, well the new Phenom 2 X4 965 should work on almost any AM2+ or AM3 board while the old Phenom 2 X4 965 will only work on motherboards that support 140watt CPU's.

It uses a little less power but essentially it is the same CPU that uses less power. While we didn't have to run the full suite of benchmarks on the Phenom 2 X4 965 125w CPU and were told that a news story would be sufficient we decided to bench it like a demon and see if the lower TDP had impaired the performance any.

Lets take the new lower TDP Phenom 2 X4 965 for a spin and see if less voltage has affected the highest out of the box frequency CPU in the world.

Except for the change in the part number the Phenom 2 X4 965 BE (125w) CPU looks exactly like it's less power friendly brother. We expect that current X4 965's will remain on the shelves until the stock is sold and the X4 965 lower TDP part will replace it. On a side note AMD is lowering the price on the X4 965 to $195 so it's more affordable and a great choice if you enjoy the ease of overclocking afforded by an unlocked multiplier CPU.