AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition

AMD has traditionally priced its CPUs with value in mind and with the six core Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition (BE), it's the same story. Whereas it costs a mere US $270, Intel's top-end six core CPU the Core i7 980X Extreme Edition sells for a dizzying $999.

The 1100T Black Edition is similar to older Phenoms in terms of architecture and design; it is built using a 45nm process, sports a ‘Turbo Core' frequency and uses the AM3 CPU socket. The 1100T has its six cores clocked at 3.3GHz each and with Turbo Core engaged, the CPU runs at 3.7GHz.

We first ran our Cinebench 10 multi-CPU test and wound up with a result of 18,894 and a time of 46 seconds. On the flip side, Intel's 980X required just 31 seconds and scored 27,691. Moving to our POY Ray benchmark the 1100T took 15 minutes and 51 seconds to complete the benchmark, whereas the 980X got the job done in 10 minutes and 25 seconds.  

Moving to gaming the Phenom II lagged behind again but as with the previous results, the Black Edition is far from slow. The CPU managed a Street Fighter IV framerate of 243.28fps running at 1,024 x 768 pixels with all the details set to high. The 980X in comparison produced a figure of 398.67fps. While the 980X is the faster chip it's worth remembering that you can buy three 1100T Black Edition AMD CPUs for less than the cost of a single Core i7 980X.