The birth of AMD's Phenom processor was a difficult one. The first chips debuted at slower clock speeds than expected, and their performance was further crippled by a patch for the infamous TLB erratum. That didn't give AMD's new microarchitecture much of a chance against Intel's mature Core 2 line, which offered better performance, lower power consumption, and a more attractive overall value proposition. No wonder the original Phenoms never made the starting lineup for any of the builds in our regular system guides. Instead, they were relegated to the bench as alternates.

Fortunately for AMD, much has changed in the nearly 18 months since the Phenom's official launch. The processor's second coming has arrived, as has a new Socket AM3 designed for DDR3 memory. Aggressive pricing has allowed the Phenom II to deliver surprisingly solid value when compared to its Core 2 rivals. AMD has added new wrinkle in the form of the Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition, too. This triple-core chip runs at 2.8GHz, has an unlocked upper multiplier and loads of apparent overclocking headroom, and sells for an affordable $150.

The X3 720 is such a good value that it's cracked Intel's dominance of our mid-range system guide build. Indeed, our latest guide's ~$750 Utility Player system features the triple-core Black Edition as our primary recommendation.

In that particular system, we've taken advantage of the Phenom II's backward compatibility with older AM2+ sockets and paired it with a lower-cost DDR2 platform. Socket AM3 is the future for Phenom II, though, and thanks to falling memory prices fueled by Intel's Core i7 launch, DDR3 has quickly become a reasonable option, even for frugal enthusiasts.

Naturally, running a Phenom II with DDR3 memory requires a motherboard upgrade. Socket AM3 boards have started trickling onto the market, and we've thrown a trio from the usual suspects—Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI—into the ring with a wild card from Jetway to see whether we can find the best Socket AM3 platform for a Phenom II build.

Read the entire article at The Tech Report.