The AMD Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition represents the company's new flagship consumer processor, but it also represents a potentially serious problem: reliable frequency scaling. To be painfully exact, the new chip is only 100MHz faster than the previous 9850 model. It is becoming increasingly doubtful AMD will further ramp Phenom core operating frequencies until the 45-nanometer "Deneb" and "Shanghai" cores reach full production status later this year.

The nominal voltage on the Phenom X4 9950 is listed as 1.05-1.30 Volts, which is interesting as the Phenom X4 9850 was 1.2-1.3 Volts. Taking a look at CPU-Z 1.46 we can see the processor is running at a core voltage of 1.296 Volts, which is right where the nominal voltage should be. The chip has a Max TDP of 140W and has official support for a 2.0GHz memory controller and HT 3.0 frequency with Dual Dynamic Power Management technology. At 140W, a robust platform will be needed for this CPU as budget boards won't meet the power requirements and will fail over time. For this reason AMD has a recommended motherboard page that they urge consumers look at when building a system around one of these parts.

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