Final Thoughts and Conclusion
I really have to hand it to AMD for listening to the community, stepping up to the plate, and making the changes required to make their latest product perform the way its expected to. Like I said in my review of the Phenom 9600 Black Edition, this is one of the things about AMD that has won over many of their now biggest fans. Unlike that previous review, there isn’t any cold hard truth to be faced. Though this version of the Phenom still doesn’t quite meet up with its Intel counterpart, it’s definitely an improvement.
In our test, the video and audio processing were no brainers in that the Phenom 9850 was just as faster or faster than a similarly clocked Intel chip. Overclocking was much easier, much more stable, and actually produced a decent performance gain. Even game performance was nothing to sneeze at, and was of course helped by the ability of this chip to overclock.
The one major downside that the Phenom 9850 carries is that it still isn’t as fast as a similarily clocked Intel chip, as many reviews have shown. As for our review, we also had problems pushing the processor beyond the level of overclock we reached. It’s not that the chip wouldn’t do it; it’s that it got too hot for my comfort. I would recommend a very powerful cooler if you wish to overclock this, and really any, processor.
In the end, the AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition is a decent product at its price point. The performance isn’t up there with the big dogs, but were talking only by a minor percentage. Really the performance doesn’t need to be an exact match to Intel, because the price is right. AMD’s parts still ring in cheaper then many Intel equivalents. That coupled with the performance seen in this review make this a good product for the overclocker on a budget who wants to personally reign in as much performance out of their rig as possible.
The Good
- TLB erratum fixed
- Smooth overclocking
- Good multimedia encoding performance
- Cheaper then equivalent Intel part
The Bad
- Close, but still behind Intel in gaming performance
- High temps when overclocked
Overall Rating: 8.5/10.0
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