Tech Reaction

I wish I knew. Don’t we all? These are supposed to be Phenom II X4 chips that have overclocking capabilities that exceed any retail Phenom II part.  Pretty cool, but there are still many unknowns that need to be answered before we can truly start to speculate on the potential of these new chips.  Let’s start with what we know…

What we know so far:

TWKR = “Tweaker”
-We can assume that this means this chip is a special performer for enthusiast overclockers

Special Packaging
-This chip comes in a very mysterious, but irresistible black box

Cherry Picked/Best Binned 955
-Sources state that these chips are some of the best 955 X4’s chosen from the binning process. This could mean that they have a high rate of Electron Migration, or capability for very high clock speeds acquired on low voltage. Rumors are saying that these chips are suited for exotic means of cooling only (ie. LN2, DICE, Water etc.)

It has not yet been announced and early images show it is not for sale
-You cannot get these anywhere, nor do we have any confirmation that they will be for sale in the retail channel

42
-This number gets me. There has been speculation as to what it could be, however, IMO I believe it is some sort of number indicating what chip it is as far as manufacturing. So maybe this could be #42 out of a limited amount.

TWKR, not BE or FX
-As far as the new naming scheme, some people have been speculating that AMD wanted to use TWKR for their best binned BE’s, while leaving the “FX” brandname for chips that are on top of the market (ahead of Intel’s best offerings)

How It Performs
-The answer is no one knows. MainGear is probably putting it to the test as we speak.