AMD did not do anything new or extraordinary with their Phenom II X4 970 BE processor. But it didn't do anything bad with it either. Even though it is AMD's highest clocked processor ever to come out to the consumer retail market, the more important thing is that the new model brings only marginal improvements in performance, but it does so without raising the price bar. Instead, AMD lowered the price points of every other model, and placed Phenom II X4 970 at the old price point of the Phenom II X4 965 - at $185. You can't argue with somebody giving you more for the same price. Black Edition does add some exclusivity flavor with unlocked multiplier and black packaging, but to be honest, if you know your way around basic BIOS settings, there is very little difference between any Phenom II X4 Black Edition model, so you need to question yourself, do I really need the fastest and most expensive one there is?

As for performance, Phenom II 965 BE and Intel's Core i5 750 were neck to neck. AMD's new X4 970 BE wins the same battle but just by a fraction of a hair. Its biggest flaw is still the much higher power consumption under load compared to Intel's Core i5 750. In our benchmarks it is either very tied to i5 750, or wins by a small or barely noticeable margin, depending on the benchmark. Intel still has the edge in single threaded applications, but it's losing ground in the gaming segment, ending just slightly faster overall. Nevertheless, AMD managed to put a lot of pressure on Intel with a price that is $10 lower price than that of the i5 750. Not much, but that could turn out just to be enough to sway you over to the green side, if you're happy with the stock performance and settings Phenom II X4 970 BE offers. Enthusiasts and gamers still have a much bigger headroom to experiment with overclocking and performance, if opting for Intel's Core i5 750 or newer i5 760. If you were to choose the new Phenom II X4 970 BE, you'd make no mistakes. It's a great refresh for the Phenom II X4 range, and as said before, it just offers you a bit more for the same price.