As you probably know, AM3 CPUs, among which is new X4 955, are AM2/AM2+ compatible so you can use them on alder motherboards that are compatible with older DDR2 memory standard. AMD this time made a smoother transition to new memory standard without danger of losing market share. Since AM3 CPUs are compatible with AM2 motherboards it was obvious intention to offer only AM3 CPUs in the near future. This simply means that you will not be able to buy a CPU that supports only DDR2 memory standard. All series of 45nm Phenom with mark “5” at the end are DDR2/DDR3 compatible, or if you like it “AM3 Ready”. Phenom II X4 955 is made in 45nm SOI manufacturing process, just like X4 940 is. AMD Phenom II X4 955 is CPU suited for advanced users and enthusiasts. Its frequency of 3.2GHz is enough even for “serious” applications.

Influence of DDR3 memory on performance levels

AMD on its presentations, in time when Deneb core and Dragon platform were presented, announced performance increases. Prediction that DDR3 memory can result in 5% performance increase isn’t too unreal. This is difference that can be registered on a motherboard with “mature” BIOS. Nice performance increase can be noticed in games, X264 and DivX compression and even in data compression applications. Also, all kinds of applications that depend on memory bandwidth will have increased performance levels. Among those are “scientific” applications that are based on huge matrix calculations, Photoshop and many others. When we overclocked northbridge, Sandra notices the difference because this results in increased frequency of integrated memory controller.