Monday, February 23rd 2009
Phenom II X3 Can be Unlocked to Phenom II X4?
It is a well-known fact that AMD has been carving out triple-core and dual-core Phenom/Phenom II series processors out of complete Agena/Deneb dice with one or two cores disabled. In a fresh revelation, a Korean enthusiast claims to have discovered that it is rather easy to unlock the disabled core on Phenom II X3 processors, provided the motherboard supports the Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) feature that is meant to enhance overclocking using AMD's Overdrive software. The enthusiast claims the soft-mod to have worked in his/her case, where a Phenom II X3 710 was paired with a Biostar TA790GX 128M motherboard. The CPU was overclocked to 3.12 GHz, with a vCore setting of 1.37 V.
The method employed: Set the appropriate BIOS setting for the Advanced Clock Calibration feature to "Auto", save settings and restart. The system will be able to deal with the disabled core, and off load some work to it. The processor with the "additional" core was tested to be Prime95 stable and was able to boost 3DMark06 CPU score by as much as 1,000 points. Let the screenshots below speak for themselves:
The method:The Result:Sources:Playwares, VR-Zone
The method employed: Set the appropriate BIOS setting for the Advanced Clock Calibration feature to "Auto", save settings and restart. The system will be able to deal with the disabled core, and off load some work to it. The processor with the "additional" core was tested to be Prime95 stable and was able to boost 3DMark06 CPU score by as much as 1,000 points. Let the screenshots below speak for themselves:
The method:The Result:Sources:Playwares, VR-Zone
99 Comments on Phenom II X3 Can be Unlocked to Phenom II X4?
Though, the "hack" sounds almost TOO easy....
Edit: I just checked my bios and its set to auto. No forth core. Ether I have a dud for that Korean is full of BS.
If triple cores are selling better than quad, there might be some perfectly fine samples going around, like there was with the 6800GT/6800LE.
be shown as a X4 from the first boot.....that is, if all 4 cores are working or???
Even if I could do this I am not so sure I would.
Well, you could flash a 2900Pro to a 2900XT, they had 100€ of difference.
The egg has a combo deal with a 720 and the case I want. Maybe I should get it?
I'll have an eye on this thread to see if anybody else here can do the same, because it doesn't seem like it would be something anybody with a X3 wouldn't notice.
But how did he get CPU-Z to say it was a X3 710 running 4 cores?
Edit: would this make the cpu essentially a X4 810?