Conclusions
One may look at the information we've presented in the preceding pages in two ways.

On the product front, the Phenom II X6 processors are unabashedly good news. AMD has managed to create a pair of new processors whose performance and value propositions are even better than some of Intel's most attractive offerings, the Core i7-930 and the Core i5-750. That's a considerable achievement, attributable to Thuban's two major new features. Turbo Core offers a modest but measurable performance boost in lightly multithreaded workloads, while the addition of two cores brings more consequential improvements in heavily multithreaded tasks like video encoding, 3D rendering, and scientific computing. The fact that these things happen in the same 125W power envelope as the Phenom II X4 is cause for celebration. The Phenom II X6 chips match up pretty well against the Core i7-900 series in terms of power efficiency, although they have a ways to go to catch Intel's Lynnfield processors on the P55 platform.

We absolutely love the degree of control over everything that AMD has exposed in the 1090T Black Edition via its Overdrive utility, too. Those who are prone to tinker will almost surely be able to extract some extra performance from the X6 1090T. If you're considering building a new system, the Phenom II X6 should at least be part of the conversation. If you already own a Socket AM2+ or Socket AM3 system and are looking to upgrade, the X6 may be the way to go.

On the other hand, to be a real downer, AMD's accomplishment here is essentially to match the Core i7-940, a product Intel first introduced in the fall of 2008. Against Bloomfield, Thuban is slower in lightly threaded applications and in cases where memory bandwidth is the primary constraint. The 45-nm Bloomfield chip is substantially smaller than Thuban, too. Now, Intel is building an even smaller 32-nm Gulftown part with six cores and, as you've seen in the preceding pages, otherworldly performance. AMD is once again contending in the middle range of the CPU market with a compelling product, but technology-wise, they still have a long, tough road ahead before catching Intel.

We're not convinced that fact will matter to most folks, though. If you have between $200 and $300 in your budget for your next CPU purchase, the Phenom II X6 merits serious consideration, because it's a solid value for the money.