AMD released their Kuma core, basically a dual core Phenom, back in December which performed much better than most expected, competitive with Intel's dual cores for the price. Since then, AMD has been busy with Phenom II launches but in time for AMD's 40th anniversary they've updated the Athlon 7750 Kuma core with the Athlon  7850 Black Edition.

There's not a lot more to say about the 7850 than we did in our 7750 review. As mentioned it is basically a dual core Phenom and in this case featuring an unlocked multiplier. Here's the official technical specs from AMD.

AMD Athlon™ X2 7850 Processor Specifications:

Processor Core Frequency: 2.8GHz

X2 7850 Black Edition Tray OPN: OPN# AD785ZWCJ2BGH

X2 7850 Black Edition PIB OPN: OPN# AD785ZWCGHBOX

L1 Cache Sizes: 64K of L1 instruction and 64K of L1 data cache per core (256KB total L1 per processor)

L2 Cache Sizes: 512KB of L2 data cache per core (1MB total L2 per processor)

L3 Cache Size: 2MB (shared)

Total Cache (L2+L3): 3MB

Memory Controller Type: Integrated 128-bit wide memory controller *

Memory Controller Speed: Up to 1.8GHz with Dual Dynamic Power Management

Types of Memory Supported: Support for unregistered DIMMs up to PC2 8500 (DDR2-1066MHz)

HyperTransport 3.0: One 16-bit/16-bit link @ up to 3.6GHz full duplex (1.8GHz x2)

Total Processor-to-system Bandwidth: Up to 28.5 GB/s bandwidth [Up to 17.1GB/s memory bandwidth (DDR2-1066) + 14.4GB/s (HT3)]

Packaging: Socket AM2+ 940-pin organic micro pin grid array (micro-PGA)

Fab location: GLOBALFOUNDARIES Fab 1 module 1 in Dresden, Germany (formerly AMD Fab 36)

Process Technology: 65-nanometer DSL SOI (silicon-on-insulator) technology

Approximate Transistor count: ~ 450 million (65nm)

Approximate Die Size: 285 mm2 (65nm)

Max Ambient Case Temp: 73o Celsius

Nominal Voltage: 1.2-1.25 Volts

Max TDP: 95 Watts



*Notes:

Black Edition processors support software-selectable increases to memory controller, HyperTransport, DDR3 and CPU core frequency

MC configurable for dual 64-bit channels for simultaneous read/writes

Here's our test system.

Windows Vista 64-bit SP1 was our OS with Catalyst version 9.4 for testing. V-sync was disabled.

Not much change from a 7750 to 7850 but both top the 5000+ easily.

Similar results are seen in UT 3.