14 DAY TRIAL // After it has been available in OEM system for more than a year now, AMD's Phenom II 960T processor based on the Zosma core has now finally made its way into retail as Newegg has recently added the CPU to its Website.
The US is the second country to get the boxed version of the 960T after Japan, where this CPU was first spotted in stores in July of this year.
The CPU listed on Newegg carries the D96ZTWFK4DGR part number, the last two letters in the OPN (“ER”) being used to describe the core that the CPU is based on, which in this case is the E0 stepping, also known as Thuban.
This means that the processor is actually a six-core part with two of its computing cores as well as some of its cache disabled.
Moving to the actual specifications, the four cores included in the Phenom X4 960T run at a base frequency of 3.0GHz and each one of these include 512KB of Level 2 cache, which are seconded by 6MB of L3 cache shared between all the cores.
The CPU's most distinctive feature however is its support fro the Turbo Core technology, which bumps the clock frequency to 3.4GHz when two of its cores are remaining idle.
The 960T fits inside a 95W thermal envelope and the processor's AM3 packaging makes it compatible with most of the AM2+, AM3 and AM3+ motherboards released until now, although a newer BIOS version might be required in order to be properly recognized.
The good news however is that the two extra cores that were disabled by AMD seem to be unlockable, turning this into a cheap alternative to the company's Phenom II X6 product line, provided that this process is indeed successful.
Newegg sells the AMD Phenom II X4 960T for $124.99, about 93 Euros, and this price also includes free 2-day shipping. (via CPU-World)