, but AMD continues to tap dance all over its competition on price. As if the previous king of sub-$300 six-core , the ($295 list as tested, 4 stars) wasn't good enough, AMD is now lowering prices even further and bringing in a new top-tier model: the Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition desktop processor. Priced at $265 (list), its unlocked multiplier and higher clock speed make it a remarkable chip for AMD freaks who want to build massively multicore systems on the ultra-cheap. In terms of pure performance, Intel still has an advantage, but AMD fervently believes it can dominate the pricing game, and the 1100T makes a compelling argument that the company is right.

As its name implies, the 1100T represents only a minute increase in clock speed over the 1090T: It has gone from 3.2 GHz to 3.3 GHz. (AMD claims the .) The newer CPU also has the same amount of L2 and L3 cache (3MB and 6MB, respectively), is based on the same 45nm production process, and is designed for the currently standard AM3 socket. Even its TDP is the same: 125 watts. All this suggests that if you have a 1090T you're happy with, the 1100T will only give you a minor speed boost. But combined with a downward nudge in pricethe 1100T coming at $265, with the 1090T now readjusted to $235you're paying less money for more performance, something that's never a bad thing.

How much more performance? As we said: modest amounts. In our 3DMark Vantage CPU test, the 1090T's 16,467 turned into 17,045 on the 1100T. The 1100T shaved off 5.4 seconds from the 4 minutes 26 seconds the 1090T needed to complete our Photoshop CS5 test. Rendering a video in Handbrake was two seconds quicker (2 minutes 6 seconds versus 2:08); and the 1100T managed 176 MBps in our TrueCrypt 7.0 cryptography trial, as opposed to the 171 MBps we got with the 1090T. We also noticed small improvements throughout our more sweeping AIDA 64, Geekbench, PCMark Vantage, and SiSoftware Sandra benchmarking suites.

What the 1100T could not deliver, however, was a crushing across-the-board blow to Intel. Though Intel doesn't exactly have a comparable product (its lowest-priced six-core chip, the (4 stars), lists for $885, and trounces the 1100T), a few that are close show the competition still wins out. Intel's $294 quad-core LGA1366 CPU, the Core i7-930, noticeably outpaced the 1100T in many of our synthetic benchmark applications and a number of our practical tests: 18,341 in 3DMark Vantage, 10.4 seconds better in Photoshop (4 minutes 10 seconds) and 11 seconds faster in Handbrake (1 minute 55 seconds). The four-core LGA1156-based Core i7-870 did even better: 19,735 in 3DMark Vantage, 3 minutes and 34 seconds in Photoshop, 1 minute 48 seconds in Handbrake, plus lots of other decisive victories in our syntheticsand it, too, is priced at $294.

The Intel chips' dominance is likely due to Hyper-Threading, which ups their number of processing threads to eight and will thus speed multithread-aware apps beyond what the six-core-six-thread 1100T can manage. The AMD CPU has other benefits, though: its unlocked multiplier, which makes for drastically simplified overclocking; and the fact that AMD's unified socket design means that the CPU will work in essentially any AMD motherboard on the market. That will be a huge plus for upgraders.

The same is very much true of the AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition overall. Intel owners can correctly claim their systems have more concentrated oomph, but AMD's chip offers an unprecedented price-performance profile and real overclocking capabilities Intel can't quite match. The 1100T is poised to redraw the sub-$300 CPU space; whether it completely succeedsor for how longwill depend a lot on how Intel responds. With only a month away AMD's accomplishment could be short lived. But for now, the 1100T is a real winner.

More CPU Reviews: