"April 23rd 2009 seemed to approach at a snails pace but finally the day is here where we can release information on the new Phenom 2 X4 955 BE and its unlocked processor. You should be seeing it on E-Tailer shelves as of today. This isn't a paper launch. The processor is immediately available on retail sites and vendors have them on hand, ready to ship should you be lucky enough to be waiting on a new AM3 processor. The Phenom 2 X4 955 BE, of course, is backwards compatible with the AM2+ platform, which is one of the exciting things about the new quads. You can upgrade while still holding onto your existing AM2+ and enjoy the benefits of a relatively inexpensive unlocked CPU and upgrade to AM3 and DDR3 at your leisure.

The higher performance and overclockability of the new Phenom 2 X4 lineup, combined with lower upgrade costs than the competition, makes the Dragon platform an attractive choice in these economic hard times. Economically speaking, the times may be hard but AMD has shown you can produce an affordable platform with out sacrificing performance. This move not only allows users to enjoy a high end platform but shows that AMD cares about the end user by keeping the prices down. Kudos AMD!"