Introduction
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AMD has just released their fastest six-core CPU, the Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition, which runs at 3.3 GHz. Let’s take a look at its performance.
It is important to know that the new Phenom II X6 1100T isn’t the CPU with the highest clock rate offered by AMD – the Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition works at 3.5 GHz.
One side effect of the release of the new Phenom II X6 1100T was the drop in price of the other six-core CPUs offered by AMD. The Phenom II X6 1090T (3.2 GHz) dropped from USD 265 to USD 230 and the Phenom II X6 1075T (3 GHz) dropped from USD 240 to USD 200 since our last CPU review. The new Phenom II X6 1100T comes priced at USD 265 for distributors, therefore retailers will offer this CPU for more than that.
The new Phenom II X6 1100T is a “Black Edition” CPU, meaning that it comes with its clock multiplier unlocked, giving you another way to overclock your CPU (by increasing its clock multiplier).
Phenom II X6 CPUs have a technology similar to Turbo Boost from Intel, dubbed Turbo Core. When the CPU “feels” that three or more cores are idle, it will increase the clock rate from the active cores. On the new Phenom II X6 1100T the clock is increased from 3.3 GHz (x16.5 multiplier) to 3.7 GHz (x18.5 multiplier).
On the other hand, AMD still doesn’t have anything similar to Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, which simulates an extra core on each CPU core. So the six-core CPU from Intel is seen by the operating system and programs as a 12-core CPU.
Let’s now make a quick comparison between the CPUs we included in our benchmarking.