Go Beyond... Ultimate Control with AMD OverDrive.Personalize your experience with state-of-the-art overclocking capabilities, along with advanced system monitoring and amazing control options for novice to enthusiast users
Average Customer Rating:
4.7 out of 5
Rating Snapshot
(117 reviews)
5 stars
88
4 stars
23
3 stars
5
2 stars
1
1 star
0
111 of 117 (95%) customers would recommend this product to a friend.
Indigo Location:
Colorado Springs, CO
Where Bought:
I bought it online (TigerDirect, Newegg, CDW)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
It's my job to know
FEATURED REVIEW
Phenom is what Quad Core Should be about
Date: December 10, 2008
Pros: Good Value, High Quality, Easy to Overclock Cons: intel still beats it
Product Use
I have this processor paired up with a VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 and a Gigabyte MA790GP-DS4H motherboard and 4 GB of Mushkin memory. It's a reliable and fast platform, I'm glad I upgraded.
"I've long purchased AMD products in the past, but moving from my beloved X2 6000+ to the Phenom 9950 Black Edition was something I didn't take lightly. I'm here to say, I'm glad I did. The performance with my X2 is pretty much par for the course, even with the 400 MHz frequency gap. On the upside of that however, since the 9950 BE is an unlocked processor, I managed to goose my 9950 from the stock of 2.6 GHz to a nice round 3.0 GHz using only a minor voltage bump to gain 100% stability. I'm using an Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro heatsink on it and my temps never go above 53*C. This thing is wicked fast at 3.0 GHz, and while it's not the top end performer, it sure is fast. I've thrown everything at it from Supreme Commander 6 player deathmatches to encoding in Windows Movie Maker to Adobe CS3 apps. The beauty of this all is how smooth it all is. I can play World of Warcraft, encode a DVD (privately produced for family) and watch a movie all without suffering a hitch in quality across anything. If you're waiting for an inexpensive quad core, the Phenom 9950 is the one to get."
Share this Review:
Review 2 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
4
out of 5
Performance:
4
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
Daddy Barongsai Location:
Jakarta
Where Bought:
I bought it at a local store (Best Buy, Fry's)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
It's my job to know
AMD Phenom X4 Black Edition 9600 2.3Ghz
Date: July 7, 2009
Pros: Good Value, High Quality, scales well to increasing program / process loads Cons: Not Fast Enough, 2mb l3 cache vs extra costs?
Product Use
- CAD Professional Design & technical drawing - fractal visualization parameter tweaking - Open GL professional 3D lighting design, programming, live simulation, & visualization. - Reatime fractal visualizer play & capture - Video Editing & rendering - Visual software composing & production - Video Jockey simulation - MAME emulator / games (on bad days) - office & internet browsing - CD/DVD ripping
"Abit AX78, 4GB DDR2 RAM (XP 3GB only), Nvidia 7100GS, Dual 19"LCD, 160GB & 500GB SATA for the replacement of my NEC mobilePC series 440 'suddenly died' mainboard power input regulator unit. The replacement mainboard costs one third of what I invested in getting the new desktop. So, Why not back to PC? I have never been an AMD user (always on Intel P4 HT 3.06Ghz for work).
Capable for running simultaneously 3 heavy duty tasks on; Xilisoft -> converting avi to vob on 6 x >600MB file chunks (bground process) Premiere 1.5 Pro -> Rendering video on 30 minutes length (bground process) Virtual Dub -> rendering appended avi chunks into one full length 15 mins avi clips (bground process). PLUS; switching back & forth between; Browsing internet using Firefox (active) & editing a CAD drawing file. Additional BG process on; download accelerator (Downloading ~ 16MB zip files), AMD Monitoring Software (96-100%) & Windows task manager (75- 87%) on cpu utilization. CPU Temperature ~ 52-53 deg C Occassionally reaching 55 deg C
Those render processes were completed within 45-55 minutes. (could have been faster if only I could obtain the 2.5 Ghz series that day (no stock))
I fired up Nero 7 vision to compile the completed 6 vob files whilst the system is running the same process loads on different job batch, , I guess that's the limit, My PC came to a complete halt. :P"
Share this Review:
Review 3 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
4
out of 5
Performance:
4
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
4
out of 5
artchil Location:
Iligan City, Philippines
Where Bought:
I bought it at a local store (Best Buy, Fry's)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
It's my job to know
Phenom X4 9550
Date: June 22, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality, Many Features, Easy to Overclock, Energy Efficient, cool
Product Use
Used it on everything related to computers--pc games, movies, internet, etc.
"Been using this Phenom X4 9550 for almost a year now and it has always been a trustworthy processor. I got it overclocked from 2.2ghz to 2.6ghz and paired it with J&W 790GX board. I am also using a Palit HD 4870 sonic 512mb and 4gb RAM. I play games all the time from Crysis to Prototype and I can actually go all out with just this humble rig. I don't know how AMD is doing this with such a cheap quad core processor but this baby sure works well and fast. I think this is the slowest quad core in the market, but it sure doesn't appear to be that way when its overclocked and running cool around 31C here in the tropics. I think Intel can't beat AMD in terms of value. But i'm turning over my Phenom 9550 to my girlfriend and heading towards phenom II 955be. 9550 is already ffast for me, but i really want to see AMD's finest as of the moment."
Share this Review:
Review 4 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Performance:
5
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
INCGGAMING Location:
Kansas
Where Bought:
I bought it online (TigerDirect, Newegg, CDW)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
It's my job to know
AMD Has Outdone themselves!
Date: June 16, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality Cons: not enough advertisements over this product.
Product Use
I use my AMD system for composing music. I do this for work through schools and creating small arrangements for Highschools and middle schools. Its good to know AMD has created wonderful technology to allow me to do things I couldn't do before.
"The wonderful AMD Quadcores have been nothing less than the best. They had made it easier for me to compose music through Sibelius and input midi in cubase to make wonderful realistic virtual sounds. I never experience the slow downs or any problems whats so ever. I'm glad I switched over the AMD, because now I can do things the right way."
Share this Review:
Review 5 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
4
out of 5
Performance:
3
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
epc-user-miyuki
Where Bought:
I bought it at a local store (Best Buy, Fry's)
Duration Used:
Over a year
Technical Understanding:
I'm a geek and totally get this stuff
Date: April 15, 2009
Pros: Good Value, High Quality Cons: Not Fast Enough, Runs Hot
Product Use
gaming , gaming , gaming
This customer did not provide a text review.
Share this Review:
Review 6 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
4
out of 5
Performance:
4
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
Spike Location:
Bombay, India
Where Bought:
I bought it at a local store (Best Buy, Fry's)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
I'm a geek and totally get this stuff
Excessively over satisfied!
Date: April 7, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality, Energy Efficient
Product Use
The basic purpose is gaming and HD movies. Actually, its mostly that 90% of the time.
"I Bought the X4 9550 a few months back and all I have to say is that its an amazing product, with a perfect mix of performance and price. Coupled with a decent graphics solution and enough system memory, its performance is wonderful, and the best part is that its very power efficient. I am really happy that I bought this product and have never been more satisfied!"
Share this Review:
Review 7 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Ryukilla Location:
Springfield,IL
Where Bought:
I bought it online (TigerDirect, Newegg, CDW)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
I'm a geek and totally get this stuff
Outstanding Speed
Date: April 1, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality
"Works great with all tasks I have thrown at it! Was a great choice for gaming and websurfing."
Share this Review:
Review 8 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Performance:
4
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
ROUNDMAN Location:
AUSTRALIA
Where Bought:
I bought it at a local store (Best Buy, Fry's)
Duration Used:
Less than a month
Technical Understanding:
It's my job to know
AM2+ 940 3.0 GIG
Date: March 27, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality, Many Features, Energy Efficient
Product Use
I MAKE SHORE I GET THE MOST OUT OF ALL MY CPU,S
"I JUST BROUGHT THE AM2+ 3.0 GIG CPU , IM USING IT IN A VERY NICE ASUS GAMERS BOARD WITH 4 GIG,S OF BALLISTIX 1066 RAM , AND I MUST SAY AMD HAVE DONE WELL , THIS 3.0 GIG CPU RUNS VERY NICE A VERY BIG JUMP FROM THE 9950 QUAD , THIS CPU WOULD BEAT THAT CPU HANDS DOWN , I MUST SAY IT RUNS AS GOOD AS ANY INTEL 2.8 GIG QUAD+ , BUT IM JUST ABOUT TO BUY THE NEW AM3 CPU 2.6 THAT IM LEAD TO BELEAVE IT CAN BE OVERCLOCKED TO 4.5 ,I WILL BE USING THE ALL NEW 790FX DQ5 DDR3 1666 MOTHERBOARD FROM GIGABYTE , I HOPE ITS WORTH IT THX."
Share this Review:
Review 9 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Performance:
4
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
alien4085 Location:
Palm Beach, FL
Where Bought:
I bought it online (TigerDirect, Newegg, CDW)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
I'm a geek and totally get this stuff
Great processor for the money.
Date: March 18, 2009
Pros: Good Value Cons: Not Fast Enough, Runs Hot
"AMD Phenom x4 9600 Black Edition. I purchased this cpu about 6 months ago from a 2.0 dual core amd. I upgraded to the fastest quad possible for my motherboard. This chip runs great no problems with multi-tasking and response. I have another computer using an Intel quad q6600 at a similar speed and performance. The Intel is much more expensive and has better benchmarks. I do not notice a difference at all between the two. Great performance for the money for sure.
I later upgraded to a better motherboard with better OC capabilities to take full advantage of the chip. There is only one problem that I do have is there is little OC capabilities. The chip is very unstable after 2.4 ghz. 100 mhz increase is not even worth the time and effort to put into overclocking. I have yet to find any one with the B2 revision above 2.5 ghz."
Share this Review:
Review 10 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
4
out of 5
Performance:
4
out of 5
Value:
4
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
michael Location:
australia
Where Bought:
I bought it at a local store (Best Buy, Fry's)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
It's my job to know
Date: March 12, 2009
Pros: Fast, High Quality, Easy to Overclock Cons: could be faster, clock easier? needs voltage to push up
Product Use
gaming, general computer use, movies etc
"nice solid processor, plays all latest games fine, thoroughly recommended"
Share this Review:
Review 11 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Performance:
5
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
fred Location:
northcentral IOWA
Where Bought:
I bought it online (TigerDirect, Newegg, CDW)
Duration Used:
Less than a week
Technical Understanding:
I know the basics
amd return
Date: February 18, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality, Many Features, Energy Efficient
Product Use
GAMING,Internet;Games are Guild Wars,Call Of Duty4,StarWars Knights of the Old Republic,No flaws or slowing during game play with 3870 HD graphics card only one card dont need anymore fast and clean.1066 mhz ddr2 memory with only two sticks in the 1 and 3 slot working great so far.
"The service I recieved on my 9850 phenom was outstanding! I will always buy AMD Our ATI, Even know I recieved a flawed processor the return and exchange was fast,and quick Thanks AMD,also the 7750 duel-core worked great in my M3A32-Deluxe board from asus,while my 9850 was evaluated and shipped back fast to me [took a week] to recive it great job THANKS AGAIN!"
Share this Review:
Review 12 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Performance:
5
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
Nike Location:
New Delhi
Where Bought:
I bought it at a local store (Best Buy, Fry's)
Duration Used:
Less than a week
Technical Understanding:
It's my job to know
Best Ever Deal
Date: January 27, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality, Many Features, Easy to Overclock, Energy Efficient
Product Use
Extreme Gaming,Watching Movies, Trying New Softwares in Market,Desigining.
"Yesterday I bought AMD Phenom X4 based system. Everything is excellent from performance to quality. Surely one should try."
Share this Review:
Review 13 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Performance:
5
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
jmc74 Location:
Antioch, CA
Where Bought:
I bought it online (TigerDirect, Newegg, CDW)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
It's my job to know
Great Performance, Excellent Value
Date: January 23, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality, Many Features, Easy to Overclock Cons: Runs Hot, power hungry
Product Use
this item is on my Gaming System, dedicated to Gaming/Net Browsing/Music, this is all connected to network of 5 PC's, Laptop and 2 Servers (Windows Home Server & Windows Server 2003 for CCTV DVR)
"I purchased the AMD PHENOM X4 9950 Black Edition and the MSI K9A2 and the AMD HD4850 to complete the SPIDER Plataform, and i cannot be happier, I just also upgraded to a DUAL HD4850 video cards, and i can beat more expensive setups like the Nvidia/Intel setups and for Way less $, the Phenom CPU overclocks great, altho the it is POWER hungry, as I have the 140w version, but right out the box overclocked to 3.0Ghz using AIR, currently I use the CoolrMaster GeninII with Dual Silverstone 120mm super silent fans, and it cools the CPU, DDR2 1066 and the Motherboard, excellent cooler, the power Supply I recomend to run a setup like this is a CORSAIR TX650 that offers a single 12v RAIL @ 54A, enough power for the POWER hungry Phenom!
the new Phenom II should be way better but until I can find a person to sell this, I will be happy! the entire setup was a great deal, $170 US dollars for the Phenom X4 BE, you cannot get better performance for the money!! way to go AMD!!"
Share this Review:
Review 14 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Performance:
4
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
uSxJaM Location:
United Kingdom
Where Bought:
It came with my computer (HP, Dell, Fujitsu)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
I know the basics
Recommended - A Brilliant Processor
Date: January 22, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality Cons: intel beats it.
Product Use
Games ( Left 4 Dead ) , Applications (Adobe Photoshop ) etc...
"I've had this for a few months now and still amazing 5 out of 5 .
My Computer Specs are -
-4GB RAM -AMD Phenom(tm) X4 Quad-Core Processor. -256MB ATi Radeon Graphics - (Some of my RAM goes into it and makes it 1.6GB) -500GB Hard Drive -Windows Vista Home Premium"
Share this Review:
Review 15 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Performance:
5
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
Zodgrod Location:
Edmonton AB
Where Bought:
I bought it at a local store (Best Buy, Fry's)
Duration Used:
Less than a week
Technical Understanding:
I'm a geek and totally get this stuff
9950 BE Best processor til pehnom 2
Date: January 6, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality, Many Features, Easy to Overclock, Energy Efficient Cons: Runs Hot
Product Use
Gaming movies, editing and everyday computing
"My wife bought me the 9950BE for xmas and I recently got it set up with the parts I had from a system housing a 5000BE processor. I had to swap out the motherboard I went from a 780G chipset up to a 790 FX chipset and I couldn't be happier. I managed to swap the motherboards rather seemlessly and previously changing all windows (both xp and vista) hardware drivers to the generic windows ones it went smoothly.
It took a bit to get all the drivers reinstalled but so far I have run benchmarks and fired up a few games on my system and have run fusion with out overdrive and it is running pretty sweet.
Awesome processor and with the 790FX chipset you can't go wrong."
Share this Review:
Review 16 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
4
out of 5
Performance:
4
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
SlowSpyder Location:
S.E. Wisconsin
Where Bought:
I bought it online (TigerDirect, Newegg, CDW)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
I'm a geek and totally get this stuff
Solid processor
Date: January 4, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality Cons: lacks overclock headroom., not efficient compared to competition's part.
Product Use
My main system is a Phenom 9850 and Radeon 4870 512MB. Before that I used a 2900 Pro video card (great overclocker!) and before my Phenom I used an Opteron 165. I use this computer for everything. From basic internet and e-mail tasks to playing the latest games to watching movies. Also, the hardware enthusiast side of me enjoys tweaking this setup and running benchmarks.
"This chip does just about everything I ask of it. At stock speeds it runs quite stable (not stability problems what-so-ever) and the temps are very decent. My biggest complaint is that I bought the 9850 Black Edition with the intention of overclocking, but even with a very good cooler my overclocking is pretty limited. I am able to push it from 2.5 to 2.8GHz, and my IMC/L3 I can get to about 230MHz before I run into stability issues. It's a shame that a chip sold as an enthusiast part can only reach such a small overclock compared to what the value part/performance part/enthusiast part of the competition can reach. I'm also a bit disappointed that my SB600 is holding me back... it does work perfectly at my stock speeds, but again this chip has to support my enthusiast part and is holding it back possibly more then anything.
Overall I am satisfied with this chip, and am looking forward to seeing what PhII brings to the table (hopefully my SB600 will work with it at it's higher clocks).
I have to add that the stock cooler that comes with AMD chips is generally quite good. I don't know how much overclocking it would allow for, but it's certainly a good unit for running at stock speeds."
Share this Review:
Review 17 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
4
out of 5
Performance:
5
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
Pysche Location:
singapore
Where Bought:
I bought it at a local store (Best Buy, Fry's)
Duration Used:
Less than a week
Technical Understanding:
It's my job to know
FASttttttttttttt
Date: January 3, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality
"i had just bought this Phenom X4 and it had a great speed using vista ultimate i can feel that i'm a rabbit uing vista not a tortise anymore keep it up AMD"
Share this Review:
Review 18 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Performance:
5
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
Herc Location:
Michigan
Where Bought:
I bought it online (TigerDirect, Newegg, CDW)
Duration Used:
Less than a month
Technical Understanding:
I'm a geek and totally get this stuff
Best Purchase Ever
Date: January 2, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality, Many Features, Easy to Overclock, Energy Efficient
Product Use
For my Home computer, so that means everything!
"I bought the AMD 9950, It is the best Processor I have ever bought. Up until now I have always bought Intel Processors. I was tired for over paying for a name. This is better and cheaper than any Intel."
Share this Review:
Review 19 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
4
out of 5
Performance:
3
out of 5
Value:
4
out of 5
Quality:
4
out of 5
Rich5559 Location:
San Jose, CA
Where Bought:
It came with my computer (HP, Dell, Fujitsu)
Duration Used:
Less than a month
Technical Understanding:
I'm a geek and totally get this stuff
Quad-Core is the way to go!
Date: January 2, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, Many Features, Energy Efficient Cons: seems to stop sometimes
Product Use
Video and audio multimedia and Blue ray disk play back.
"I purchased a Gateway LX6200-01 with the AMD Phenom X4 9500 processor. I had problems with Gateway harddrive the oly problem I seem to have with the processor is that seems to hang up during the play of video on the Slingbox Pro HD and some other programs. I am using Vista Home Premium 64 with 8GB of DDR2."
Share this Review:
Review 20 for AMD Phenom X4 Quad-Core
Overall:
5
out of 5
Performance:
5
out of 5
Value:
5
out of 5
Quality:
5
out of 5
stretch Location:
Port Richey, Fl
Where Bought:
I bought it online (TigerDirect, Newegg, CDW)
Duration Used:
A few months now
Technical Understanding:
It's my job to know
Whazzat?
Date: January 1, 2009
Pros: Fast, Good Value, High Quality, Many Features, Energy Efficient
Product Use
Tech subjects on the web, email, some gaming, online shopping, research, music burning this and that.
"Did you see that? Not really, the page loaded to quickly. Whazzat? Too quickly? Is that even possible? Installed the Phenom 9600 Black Edition Quad Core into a new MSI K9N2 SLI Platinum mobo w/4GBs OCZ Nvidia SLI 800, sat back and watched the lightning strike. Wow! I mean what good is high speed broadband without a blistering CPU. Seriously, I find myself waiting for web pages to open, only to realize they already have. Freaky. OS is XP Pro sp3, leaned out, 32 running processes on average. Using 2 Power Color ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT Internal DAC(400MHz) 1024 MB on a KDS Hi Res 22" w/ 5ms RT. The point is, this CPU is very fast at stock, no overclock, no nothing, extremely quick, stable, cool and quiet with included cpu cooler. I used to be a die hard fan of the other guys chips but have been building my systems and others, ( I own Jims Home PC Repair ), for the last 2 yrs with AMD and I nor any of my customers have yet to experience any catastrophic failures due to faulty CPUs (touch wood). I would, and have, recommended AMD products and will continue to do so."