AMD Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition

Verdict: Phenom X2 arrives, but it's branded as an Athlon X2.

The 7750 Black Edition is the latest addition to the Athlon X2 series, but we thought that it was worth reviewing separately, as it uses a completely different core design. Although it's based on the same AMD64 architecture, the X2 7750 Black Edition has more in common with Phenom than other Athlon X2s.

In fact, there are so many similarities between the 7750 Black Edition and Phenom that we wonder if it's the same Phenom X2 that AMD announced two years ago but never launched. And we aren't the only ones - CPU-Z is convinced that the X2 7750 Black Edition is a Phenom.

Unlike the other Athlon X2s, the X2 7750 Black Edition is Socket AM2+ instead of Socket AM2, so it has separate voltage planes for the CPU cores and an integrated memory controller. Its two cores are each equipped with 512KB of Level 2 cache and are clocked at 2.7GHz. Like the Phenom CPUs, both cores have access to 2MB of Level 3 cache, and as it's a Black Edition, the CPU multiplier is unlocked for easy overclocking.

Costing just over £66, the X2 7750 Black Edition is priced midway between the Athlon X2 6000+ and 6400+. This is a sensible move on AMD's part, as it also performs midway between these two processors, achieving a reasonable score of 830 in our Media Benchmarks.

By raising its vcore from 1.312V to 1.5V and its CPU multiplier from 13.5 to 15.5, we successfully overclocked the 7750 Black Edition from 2.7GHz to 3.1GHz. This provided a very welcome performance boost, raising its Media Benchmark score to 927, although Crysis barely saw any improvement.

While the X2 7750 Black Edition is very easy to overclock, it's a rather pointless addition to the Athlon X2 family. Being stuck between the 6000+ and 6400+ models means that it's beaten to a pulp by the similarly priced Pentium E5200, as that is easily overclocked to well over 3.5GHz.

It's interesting to see 'Phenom X2' finally arrive, but it's too little, too late. However, if AMD can release a Phenom II-based 45nm version that overclocks better in the next few months, it may be able to reclaim the dual-core market from Intel.