Etailers are taking orders on the Phenom II X4 965BE

ETAILERS IN EUROPE are taking orders for AMD's new Phenom II X4 965 BE processor.

The new quad-core flagship in the AMD fleet clocks in at 3.4GHz with 4GHz HT links and features 512KB L2 cache per core plus the 6MB L3 cache that is standard with the rest of the Deneb family. Contrary to popular belief, the processor still dissipates 125W of power, though.

It seems Europe trumped the US this time, as you can find the processor in €uroland through Salland.eu (€236) and at Adsis in the UK (£196), but we've been unable to track it down in the US although we're confident you'll find it there, selling in the neighbourhood of $330.

In case you weren't paying attention last week, most etailers were dumping the previous top-clocked Phenom II X4 955 BE at very low prices, prepping their virtual shelves for this launch. The 955 could be had last week for about €170 or £159, which was quite a deal.

The Phenom II X4 965 bears the Black Edition pedigree that gets you an unlocked multiplier and should provide some top overclocking action for AMD to brag about. However, we're pretty sure the higher the default clock, the less likely it is that you'll get extra headroom in the CPU.

This might be a good time to land a bargain on the 955 BE, really. µ