AMD Phenom II X6 1075T Pro Reviews

Today’s launch of the X6 1075T fills the gaps between the X6 1090T and X6 1055T. As expected, the six-core processor shines in applications that are heavily threaded. Unfortunately, not many desktop applications, such as games and Office Suites, are heavily threaded enough to really take the advantage of the extra cores. Many applications still only utilize two (at most four) cores effectively. This is where the addition of Turbo Core comes in to offer a boost in performance for those applications that cannot take the advantage of the extra cores.

It's no secret that AMD prices their processors aggressively against their Intel counterparts, it's great for the consumer because it means we get the most bang for our buck. I am super excited about the new Phenom II X6 1075T. Previously when choosing a hex-core AMD processor, one only had the choice for the X6 1055T priced around $200, or the flagship model the X6 1090T BE priced around $300. The X6 1075T fills that void right in the middle, it delivers outstanding performance and is an excellent value for its price.

Fleshing out the X6 lineup is another big key here, as Intel has nothing that compares to the two products at the $199 and $249 price points. It is somewhat unfortunate that the 1075T is locked, but if a user wants that functionality they will have to pony up the extra $45 to $50 for the 1090T Black Edition.

Whether you are building a new system or upgrading to a faster processor the AMD Phenom II X6 1075T should be a serious contender on your short list. It offers great performance on lightly threaded applications and excelled at heavily threaded applications thanks to having a true six core design.

Six cores and 3GHz is impressive at any price. For under £200 it makes for a very good deal indeed. In fact, the new Phenom II X6 1075T is probably the best sub-£200 chip on the market when it comes to highly threaded apps. It also overclocks well for a six-core CPU.

We didn’t see any considerable performance increase with the new Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition compared to the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition. Therefore, if you looking for the fastest quad-core CPU from AMD, you can buy the Phenom II X4 965 and save some money. Unless, of course, you are into overclocking. The new Phenom II X4 970 is in a class of its own, and we were able to easily overclock it past 4.3 GHz. With more time and patience you will surely be able to achieve an even better result.The Core i5-750 was faster than the Phenom II X4 970 and Phenom II X4 965 in most programs, but it is more expensive.

The optimist in us would have liked AMD to introduce a glut of high-performance, low-power chips before it transitions to a new microarchitecture. As it is, the X6 1075T and X4 970 BE serve to solidify AMD's position as price-to-performance leader in the sub-£200 processor market, and it's only the relative excellence of the surrounding Phenom chips that inhibits us from giving out recommendations.

A functional and affordable six-core CPU, but overshadowed by AMD's other offerings

The AMD Phenom II X6 1070T AM3 HDT75TFBK6DGR processor rocks. Its low price combined with its excellent overclocking ability make it one of the best "bang for the buck" CPUs you can buy. In fact, it's so good that it represents a better value than the Phenom II 1090T Black Edition, which costs $55 more. As our benchmarks showed, the overclocked 1070T was able to match or beat the 4-times-more-expensive Intel Core i7-980X processor (albeit at its stock clock rates) in several of the tests, and was within 20% or so in most others. Another surprise was how well the $165 Phenom II 965 Black Edition aquitted itself: if you're not doing a lot of music or video encoding, you can get slightly better stock performance with the 965's 400MHz clock speed advantage over the 1070T. In the majority of these tests both the 965 Black Edition and stock-clocked 1070T beat the more expensive Core i7 860 and Core i7 930 processors.

This midprice six-core CPU can’t catch Intel’s high-end offerings, but at less than a quarter of the price, it’s a fine performer for serious content creators on a budget.