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Acer Aspire 5553G showcases AMD's quad-core Phenom II N930 in early review
As with most good things, this comes from Bulgaria. Laptop.bg have finagled themselves a prototype unit of Acer's forthcoming Aspire 5553G and taken it on a benchmarking adventure to see what it's made of. Their first impressions relate to the case, which comes in a familiar Timeline-inspired design, including a fingerprint-loving glossy lid and Acer's particular take on the island keyboard, but they quickly move on to analyzing the quad-core Phenom II N930 heart beating within. Sadly, this particular unit was held back in gaming by its anemic Mobility Radeon HD 4250 GPU, but the news wasn't all that flattering in CPU-isolating comparisons either. Cinebench 10 found the N930 outperforming Intel's previous generation chips in multicore workloads, but falling behind on single-threaded tasks. AMD seems intent on pricing its latest Phenoms aggressively, and if you're not too hung up on getting great battery life these will look appealing, but we can't help feeling disappointed that Intel's Core i7s aren't being given more to worry about. Hit the source for the full review.
AMD Phenom II TWKR Black Edition CPU up for auction, sure to fetch a bundle
Remember that AMD Phenom II X4 TWKR processor that we saw overclocked and reviewed just over a fortnight ago? Don't you recall reading and wondering why you were even wasting your time given the scarcity of said chip? It took awhile, but it seems the justification you've been searching for has finally arrived. AMD only manufactured a smattering of these chips in order for select media outlets to showcase the company's potential, and somehow one has found its way onto eBay. Best of all, 100 percent of the proceeds will benefit a charity (Family Eldercare), so you can feel good about spending way, way too much on a slab of silicon. Tap the read link if you care to drive the price up even further (and you know you do).[Thanks, Alex]
Video: AMD's Phenom II X4 TWKR CPU for extreme overclocking lunatics
AMD has recently cooked up a little something they like to call the Phenom II X4 TWKR Black Edition, a hand-picked, limited edition processor that is designed to be overclocked "to the extreme." Currently labeled "Not for Sale," with no serial numbers and only one hundred of these bad boys in existence, just a few lucky folks have got their hands on one, so we've dug up some reviews (and previews) so you can see what the fuss is all about. According to the company, one of these guys could be pushed by 100MHz with air cooling, which doubles to about 200MHz with "extreme cooling." As far as impressions go, the reviewer at Neoseeker quickly decided that the units aren't meant to be overclocked on air only, and that dry ice isn't much better. Hot Hardware says pretty much the same thing. Though they weren't able to test with liquid nitrogen or liquid helium (the only way to get real speed) they did put a Koolance LN2 pot (and about 20lbs of dry ice) to the test for 4.73GHz. For best results, according to Tom's Hardware Guide, bench the processor at -190°C or cooler. But for the real overclocking experience you simply must check out the video of the "world renowned overclockers" K|ngp|n, chew*, and Gomeler as they run the gamut of "extreme overclocking techniques" after the break. Read - AMD Phenom II TWKR Edition CPU PreviewRead - AMD's Phenom II X4 TWKR: We Give It The LN2 Treatment Read - AMD Phenom II 42 TWKR Black Edition ProcessorRead - AMD Phenom II TWKR Black Edition Processor
AMD overclocks the snot out of Phenom II processors
No, you're not looking at some high-precision, multimeter-laden kegerator; the above is a picture from a recent AMD event in which things apparently got a little out of hand. The company started by talking up its upcoming Dragon platform (Phenom II X4, Radeon 4800 graphics, and 7-series chipset), took a few moments to discuss how its new 45nm chips will use 30-50 percent less power than their predecessors, and then threw all notions of sensibility out the window in an attempt to see just how fast the darned things could go. A Phenom II X4 managed 4GHz with air-cooling, 4.4GHz with a refrigerated setup, and finally a "stable" 5GHz on liquid nitrogen. That's mighty fast, but will the chips be quick enough to tackle Intel's mighty Core i7 when stripped of their fancy-pants cooling appendages? We'll see when they ship early next year. [Image courtesy of Legit Reviews]
