AMD Offers Glimpse of Phenom II, Overclocks It Past 5GHz

AMD's first Phenom debut failed to live up to the pre-release hype, so the chip maker is gearing up to give it another go-round with Phenom II, otherwise known as Deneb. The official launch for Phenom's second act won't take place until January, 2009, but AMD recently invited several members of the press to its Austin, Texas headquarters to see the upcoming chip in action.

While there, attendees watched as AMD demoed Phenom II being overclocked on a variety of cooling solutions, including air, water, phase change refrigeration, and the mother of them all, Liquid Nitrogen. According to HotHardware, the Phenom II X4 danced around 4GHz at 1.55V on air with 32C temps, 4GHz+ at 1.6V on water with a 39C core temp, and over 4.4GHz in a Vapochill setup. But when doused with LN2, HotHardware says the Phenom II X4 on display ran stable at over 5GHz and booted (but not stable) at over 6GHz.

While few are equipped with or even care about LN2 cooling, breaching 4GHz on air with manageable temps bodes well for AMD's next chip release. If AMD's upcoming 45nm CPUs have the headroom to reach 4GHz and beyond, it might stand a chance next to Intel's recently released Core i7.

Image Credit: HotHardware