Review: AMD Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition

AMD has been prolific lately and the next in its line to fall under our spotlight is the dual-core Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition.As a result of its labours, AMD certainly has a lot of flavours of processor on the market these days, but as a gamer on a budget do you really need anything with more than two cores yet? There's still a dearth of multithreaded titles out there really taking advantage of the hex-core marvels AMD has recently launched, so you could be forgiven for sacrificing cores for cash.The lads and lasses at AMD obviously understand that too, since the company's bolstering its dual-core lineup with another Black Edition CPU, now hitting the 3.3GHz mark. We've already seen the Phenom II X2 550 and 555 chips, which managed 3.1GHz and 3.2GHz respectively.Quite why we need another CPU with such a small incremental increase is rather beyond us. Sure it's a Black Edition, with all the unlocked multiplier joy that entails, but then so was the 3.1GHz 550. Why push it further?There's practically zero difference in performance terms between the two low-end Black Edition Phenom IIs. That's not surprising, since there's also little difference between the two architectures. The extra megahertz don't really give you anything but a small increase in the video encoding score ? a score that's easily bettered by the quad-core Athlon II X4 620.Video encoding performanceX264 v3 ? FPS: higher is betterPhenom II 560BE ? 10.9Phenom II 550BE ? 10.4CPU rendering performanceCinebench R11.5 ? Index: bigger is betterPhenom II 560BE ? 1.89Phenom II 550BE ? 1.89DX10 gaming performanceJust Cause 2 ? FPS: higher is betterPhenom II 560BE ? 45Phenom II 550BE ? 45The budget end of the AMD processor spectrum is a tricky one to negotiate ? there are a host of CPUs on offer for incredibly low prices. The Athlon II X4 620 is one of the cheapest quad-core processors you'll ever see and it's definitely no slouch at 2.9GHz. For some decent multithreaded application performance, or video tweakery, then the quad is always going to prove a boon over the more remedial dualies.That said, the lack of decent cache levels means it's not going to give you any joy in games, which is where the dual-core Phenom IIs really take over. They also give you rather stellar overclocking performance too.Then there's the looming spectre of AMD's core unlocking feature, although that increasingly is looking redundant in the latest chip samples we've had a play with. One of our 550s went all the way and unlocked two extra cores giving us a bargainous quad-core, but the other stubbornly refused to. The same happened here with our 560 sample ? it just wouldn't boot with any extra cores unlocked.So what do you really get for your extra cash if you pick up the 560 over the Phenom II X2 550? Honestly, very little. Despite the new stepping, there's no change in the power rating of 80W and we could garner no extra overclocking performance out of it either. Both CPUs would happily hit 4GHz on air, but try as we might we couldn't get a stable clock any higher than that. At �65, then, the 550 Black Edition looks like a far better bet for those after a budget gaming setup, and that's easily achievable when twinned with a bargain AMD motherboard. You can also drop more on the motherboard with a view to upgrading your CPU if and when you can afford it thanks to AMD's single-socket platform.Which leaves the Phenom II X2 560 a rather unnecessary addition to AMD's CPU lineup, lacking the multithreaded performance of chips with more cores or any extra overclocking headroom.We likedThe Phenom II X2 560 is still able to hit 4GHz on air-cooling alone, as long as you've got a decent cooler, and the gaming performance isn't bad for a cheap chip either.We dislikedThe fact that there's little tangible difference between this newer chip revision and the cheaper dual-core 550 Black Edition makes this processor practically irrelevant.VerdictAn unnecessary addition to the low-end Phenom II range.Related LinksTechRadar's Reviews GuaranteeBest budget processorsRelated StoriesReview: Advent Sienna 510Review: Asus GeForce GT 430Apple shares hit all-time highReview: Packard Bell Dot UViewSonic 24-inch 3D monitor unveiledAikido