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For the next gaming box question, here's a good answer.

Die size hasn’t changed, clock speeds barely went up, and performance per clock also remained static. But what’s this?

[graph]

Ah yes, AMD is improving its 45nm manufacturing process and today we have the latest incarnation of AMD’s 45nm silicon.

The first versions of AMD’s 45nm Phenom II couldn’t really go much higher than the final 65nm Phenom without increasing voltage. By comparison, Intel’s Core i7 920 could go from 2.66GHz all the way up to 3.80GHz without so much as a single extra millivolt in our tests.

This new Phenom II however can also hit 3.80GHz without increasing the core voltage. At least that’s what one of our samples did in our testing. Whether it’s 3.8GHz or 3.6GHz, the fact of the matter is that AMD’s 45nm process is improving and that’s what’s behind todays introduction of the Phenom II X4 955. Architecturally the Phenom II hasn't changed; if you're curious about what makes these things tick, please look at our original article on the CPU.

Good price/perf, unlocked, and able with an ATi card to use AMD's Fusion suite that makes Vista nearly as bloat-lite as XP. Ah, for some cash...

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh … spx?i=3551