That version, though, has all the benefits of more expensive chips and even trumps the X4 810 in the cache department. That said, though, the X2 550 Black Edition does lag behind both the Phenom II X3 720 and X4 810, the other AM3 chips within touching distance, in our tests.

Apart from in the World in Conflict benchmark. WiC relies heavily on the clockspeed of your processor rather than the core count, so the 550's 3.1GHz pushes it way ahead of both the triple and quad-core chips. Far Cry 2 and the X264 benches, however, are more geared towards multicore performance and show the lacking silicon in stark contrast.

But the secret to how this £75 chip has impressed me so much is in the title. It's that Black Edition moniker again boasting of unlocked multipliers and the overclocking benefits that promises. And it doesn't fail to deliver either. In barely a couple of hours, I managed to push the chip to the brink of 4GHz on air-cooling alone, with only AMD's Overdrive software for company.

For well under £100, this dual-core Phenom II is the perfect partner for a budget gaming PC, giving massive overclocking headroom and performance on a par with more expensive multi-core offerings. With the extra cash on a better GPU, you'd see gaming figures even surpass them. The Athlon II, though, is weaker - too close in cost, but not in performance.

AMD athlon ii phenom ii benchmarks

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