What is it like to play latest games in 2018 on a Phenom II x6 CPU from 2010?

Actually, not much different than playing them in 2010, provided you have a sufficiently powerful graphics card.

This Phenom X6 was acquired last year to extend the life of of a socket AM3 system I built for my parents back in 2009. The system originally had a Phenom 2 X3 720, which unfortunately could not unlock a fully functional fourth core. And while the X3 was good enough for a long time, the idea of not having a fully fledged quad core bugged me. Then, as I was pondering picking up a cheap Phenom 2 X4 960 last year, I remembered that the X6 was based on a newer revision of the Phenom 2 which offered two additional cores for the same power requirement and TDP as the older X4 variant. So why settle for four cores when you can have six?

Trying out some recent games – Fallout 4, Rise of Tomb Raider, GTA V, and more. The CPU still has enough power to push playable frame rates at maxed out settings, but the lack of SSE 4.1 and 4.2 instructions sets may pose some problems in latest games refusing to work. Is it a fluke, or a sign of things to come? Maybe I’ll revisit the topic in 2020 with a more definitive answer.

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