At only $195, it's hard to deny that AMD's new Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition desktop chip is really a bargain. Its four cores hum along at three.7GHz, the fastest base clock speed of any consumer CPU, along with the unlocked multiplier ought to make it trivial for overclockers to push this beast to 4GHz and beyond. The 980 slides correct into the very same cost point as the previous champ, the Phenom II X4 975,
and knocks a couple of bucks off the former clock-frequency king. All of this seems like fantastic news for AMD fans. Of course, if you are starting from scratch and not just searching to upgrade an aging AM3 rig, maintain in mind that only $30 a lot more scores you the mid-range Core i5-2500K that consistently outperforms the 980, consumes less power, and also has an unlocked multiplier. Guess there's often the graphics market should you care to see AMD being competitive. For the nitty-gritty on how its most recent central processing unit stacks up, see the source links.
