Advanced Micro Devices is shipping central processing units aimed at extreme enthusiasts, those, who do not care about the reliability, but are only interested in performance in select benchmarks. Those processors are called AMD Phenom II 42 TWKR (tweaker) Black Edition and they are only available directly from AMD.

“I can confirm that the [AMD Phenom II TWKR] exists and that has the enthusiast community [is] buzzing right now. However, I cannot provide details at this time. We'll be back in touch next week with more info,” said Steve Howard, a spokesperson for AMD.

Like all of the latest microprocessors for enthusiasts, AMD Phenom II TWKR Black Edition processors come with unlocked multiplier, which dramatically eases overclocking. But in addition to that, the new chips are supposed to sustain never-before-seen thermal design power, about 200W, and should be cooled using liquid nitrogen, cascade, dry ice or other extreme methods. The reason? It is believed that the new TWKR processors will hit unbelievable clock-speeds and will provide leading performance in benchmarks.

Image by Wallace Santos, chief executive officer of Maingear

Unfortunately, the new chips are not exactly aimed at retail market and are projected to be only available from AMD and for select system makers or enthusiasts. AMD reportedly wants to position its AMD Phenom II TWKR Black Edition chips as “Formula 1” processors: the chips hardly have resource to operate at 7.0GHz – 8.0GHz for a reasonable amount of time, but the enthusiasts looking forward breaking performance records will still find them useful.

Despite of the aim at hardcore enthusiasts, the new AMD Phenom II TWKR chips can find themselves in high-end gaming PCs as well, if system integrators find them useful. At least, currently the chips are shipping to system makers.

“A Phenom II X4 processor without a model number?  TWKR? 42? What does it all mean? The answer to life, the universe, and everything? Well, AMD culled these parts from their Phenom II X4 line that are supposed to overclock beyond the capabilities of the Phenom II X4 955.  They hand delivered these parts to us and we’re going to put them through the ringer,” said Chris Morley, chief technology officer or Maingear, a high-end PC maker.

Tags: AMD, Phenom, Deneb, 45nm, TWKR