It has been a while since we tested some CPUs. Since about three months AMD is selling it's first Hexa-Core generation, namely the Phenom II X6 1055T and the Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition. Both CPUs are still manufactured in a 45nm SOI process, but still keeping the TDP envelope of 125W. That's the same TDP as many other Phenom II X4 but with two cores less. We were lucky and got a sample of the new 95W TDP version of the 1055T which is an incredible achievement for AMD to fit six cores in such a TDP.

While Intel upped the L3 cache on its hexa-cores it's the same on the X6 with 6MB. The cores themselves retain their 512kB L2 cache and 64kB L1 caches for data and instructions. With an affordable price point of just €174/$199 for the 1055T and €252/$299 for the 1090T AMD is attacking the lower cost Intel quad-core CPUs such as i5-750 and i5-760. As you can see from the picture of the dice, AMD just added two cores to an existing quad-core but of course tweaked the design. 

Testbed:

Motherboard:
MSI 890GXM-E65 (provided by MSI)
AMD 890GX/SB850

MSI 790FX-GD70 (provided by MSI)
AMD 790GX/SB750
ASRock H55M Pro (provided by ASRock)
Intel H55

CPUs:
Intel Pentium G6950, i3-530 (provided by Mindfactory)
AMD Athlon II X2 240e, 245, Phenom II X4 620, Phenom II X6 1090T (provided by AMD)
 AMD Phenom II X6 1055T (95W) (provided by ASRock, we appreciate the superb support)

CPU-Cooler:
Scythe Grand Kama Cross (provided by Scythe-Europe)

Memory:
G.Skill 4GB Kit PC3-12800 (provided by G.Skill)
1067MHz CL7-7-7-20 CR1T 1.30V for Athlon II X2, Pentium G6950
1333MHz CL7-7-7-20 CR1T 1.35V for Athlon II X4, Phenom II X4/X6, i3-530, i5-750

Graphics Card:
MSI R4850-2D1G-OC (provided byMSI)

Power supply:
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 500W (provided by PC Power & Cooling)

Hard disk:
Samsung F1 1000GB RAID-Edition (provided by Ditech)

Case fans:
SilenX iXtrema Pro 14dB(A) (provided by PC-Cooling.at)
Scythe DFS122512LS

Case:
Cooler Master Stacker 831 Lite (provided by Cooler Master)

OS:
All tests are performed with XP SP3. As 64-bit software is still not very common, we stick to the 32-bit version. We will change to Windows 7 when we swap the graphics card for a DX11 capable one.