AMD Phenom II X6 1100T BE Hex-Core Processor

Product Summary & Final Conclusions:

I'm really pleased with the AMD Phenom II X6 1100T, it's an excellent value for the performance. In fact, the Phenom II X6 1100T is launching at a lower price ($265) than the Phenom II X6 1090T was when it originally came out ($295). The current price for the X6 1090T ($229) makes it a pretty sweet deal, and should overclock in the same ballpark as an X6 1100T. It should be noted that all AM3 processors are compatible with current AM3 & AM2+ sockets, and are designed to be compatible with the upcoming AM3+ socket... So you get backwards and forwards compatability.

Intel should not be ruled out though, their Core i7 processors still dominate the top-end, it all just depends on how much money you want to spend. With the upcoming release of Intel's "Sandy Bridge" (socket 1155) processors, it will be interesting to see what happens to the older, first generation socket 1366 & 1156 models.

AMD's Phenom II X2 processors are always cheap fun when wanting to overclock but not risk an expensive processor. They also make great processors for gamers, since usually performance maxes out around 2-3 cores. What they save on the processor they can put towards a better video card. There is also that chance that one could unlock some extra cores on the X2 processors too. The Phenom II X2 565 BE should be a great seller, as all previous models have done exceptionally well.

Lets not forget the new Athlon II X3 455 processor either. In many desktop type applications the raw MHz plays more of a role than the addition of the L3 cache in the Phenom II models. Thus, this makes the Athlon II processors excellent for corporate environments, or even your average home user where gaming is not a primary use of the computer. The triple-core processors have always fascinated me, they typically give a considerable boost over dual-core chips, but come in priced well below a full-blown quad-core processor.

AMD has always kept people's pocket books in mind, they price processors according to what the average consumer can afford. Likewise, AMD keeps their eye on upgradeability and backwards compatibility. For instance, I installed a new Phenom II X6 1075T in an old Socket AM2+ motherboard. It took a little fiddling in the BIOS, but it runs quite happy in that old system. In fact, I managed to overclock it to like 3.8 GHz stable with the same heatsink that was on the old processor.