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AMD's 3.2GHz hexacore Phenom II X6 1090T comes out for a review roundup

How's your memory today? Specifically, can you remember the last time AMD had a legitimate claim to the desktop performance crown? Don't hold your breath, the latest and greatest Phenom II still can't steal the spotlight from Intel's spectacular top-of-the-line Core i7-980X, but if prices actually matter to you, you'll wanna read on. Whereas you'd need to shell out $999 to get six cores from Intel, AMD is offering you its flagship 3.2GHz 1090T model at a reasonable $285, or an even more affordable option with the 2.8GHz 1055T at $199. The T in those names stands for Turbo Core, which automatically downclocks half the cores in order to provide a little extra speed (up to 500MHz more) to the other three. Reviewers agreed that its inclusion helped significantly improve single-threaded performance, to the point where the faster (in default clock speed) 3.4GHz Phenom II X4 965 was falling behind in benchmarks. The general opinion by the typically jaded journalists was that AMD has finally regained some pep in its step and that these new 6-core CPUs are going to give Intel's upper midrange offerings something to worry about. Lest we forget, the 1090T and 1055T also retain socket compatibility with current AM2+ and AM3 motherboards, making upgrades a cinch too. The full reviews await below.

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