Beast processor during its time, when single core performance was king, but also software support, starting with Windows itself, was a major factor, it's crazy because all the benches at the time showed the e8500 beating the Phenom II 965 in gaming( the reason I was building a system) at the time, especially when it came to OC.
Crazy what the benches are now, if you have Phenom II now with a mobo that works it may be useful (but they aren't very power efficient) but I burnt my mobo out overclocking so the point of what either processor could do 5 much less 10 years later is pretty moot. [Feb '21qnytech1]
The AMD Phenom II X4 955 is a quad-core processor based on the K10 micro-architecture. When it launched in Q2 of 2009, it was AMD’s fastest CPU. Given its base clock of 3.2 GHz, with appropriate cooling, this unlocked Black Edition chip can be overclocked to speeds in excess of 4 GHz. The 955’s effective speed of 63 isn’t impressive by today’s standards, but when coupled with a decent graphics card, it won't cause major bottlenecks for most games. The 955 was pitched against the high-end of Intel’s Core 2 quads, and now costs a fraction of its original list price as one would expect, however there are better alternatives on the market now. [Dec '14CPUPro]
We calculate effective speed which measures real world performance for typical users. Effective speed is adjusted by current prices to yield a value for money rating. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top CPUs. [CPUPro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.