AMD Phenom II 955 Black Edition processor is company's fastest processor ever, giving performance users massive headroom, HD visuals, backwards compatibility and DDR3 support at a very competitive price

AMD announced a platform refresh today for Dragon platform technology, including the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor (3.2GHz, 125W, 2MB total dedicated L2 cache, 6MB L3 cache, 4000MHz HyperTransport bus, socket AM3). As AMD?s fastest ever quad-core processor, it brings all the capabilities gamers, enthusiasts and do-it-yourselfers have come to expect from AMD, including a 4.2GHz overclocking on air, according to AMD. The new platform also supports high-speed DDR3 memory support and AMD OverDrive 3.0 technology.

The Dragon technology refresh consists of the new AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor, AMD 7-Series chipsets and ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics.

The new AMD OverDrive 3.0 software delivers with a few new features:

- The AMD Black Edition Memory Profile lets users create custom profiles that can easily overclock known DDR3 memory to easily achieve optimum high speed DDR3 performance.

- The MD Smart Profiles can automatically tune performance for specific applications, whether for max performance or quiet operation.

Socket AM3 processors, such as the latest AMD Phenom II CPUs, are backwards compatible with existing AM2+ platforms running DDR2 memory, and can also transition to AM3 motherboards that support DDR3 memory when the time is right.

The AMD Phenom II 955 Black Edition processor is listed at AMD's web site for $245, in 1000-unit tray quantities.