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If you're willing to take a chance, you might as well buy a AMD Phenom II X3 and unlock the 4th core. Chances are, it will work, and you'll get a quad core CPU for a great price.

I've got this one, and on a modest after market cooler, and the antec skeleton case, I've got it oc'd to 3.6ghz without really even trying (it's the black edition, so the multiplier is unlocked).

intel says my quadcore more efficient.

Still better off getting the Phenom II X3 720, even if you're unable to unlock the 4th core, it still overclocks just as good as this one, meaning you can get a triple-core CPU with 6MB of L3 cache, running fine at 3.4Ghz with no v-core adjustment for only $140.

#1: No sh*t!!!!

#4: FYI: Intel CPU are more expensive too.

Do you guys actually think AMD is so stupid that they'd block off access to a 4th core just to create a 3-core processor, or is it possible there's a good reason that core was locked?

#7 A little bit of both.... the 3 cores are one of 2 things. the outer edge of the fab that didnt meet quality control for a 4 core proc, or they ran out of supply and had to use good fabs for the tri core in which case they just lock the 4th core. They did this with their dual cores no to long ago but were smart about it... they cut the line to the 2nd core.

Don't buy this or you'll insult the Binars.

#7: you're missing one thing. Demand for AMD's X3 CPU's greatly outstrips their supply of quadcores with exactly one defective core. So, many of the tri-core CPU's that they sell(likely the vast majority of them) are actually normal quad-cores with one core disabled.

This is much the same as how many graphics cards have some of the shaders disabled. The 8800GT is a 8800GTS with a few shaders disabled. The 8800GS/9600GSO/GT130/GT225 is a 8800GTS with more shaders disabled, and the memory interface set to a lower bandwidth.

Just google for "9600gso 8800gts softmod". Also, Some 6200GT's could be softmodded into a 6600GT. Some Radeon 9500 Non-Pro/9800 SE cards also could have their extra pipelines unlocked. Also, some models of the GeForce 6800 could be softmodded.

Anyway, tech news sites have been reporting lately that people have had excellent success rates with this unlock. Here's a quote:

CW, I'm with you in concept, but where did you read (specifically) that AMD is disabling the fourth core to meet demand for three-core CPUs? I haven't been able to find that one.

How are these new Phenoms compared to the old ones? I have a 9950 and a couple 9600s...Are they worth it?

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>CompWiz17 wrote:</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">#7: you're missing one thing. Demand for AMD's X3 CPU's greatly outstrips their supply of quadcores with exactly one defective core. So, many of the tri-core CPU's that they sell(likely the vast majority of them) are actually normal quad-cores with one core disabled.

This is much the same as how many graphics cards have some of the shaders disabled. The 8800GT is a 8800GTS with a few shaders disabled. The 8800GS/9600GSO/GT130/GT225 is a 8800GTS with more shaders disabled, and the memory interface set to a lower bandwidth.

Just google for "9600gso 8800gts softmod". Also, Some 6200GT's could be softmodded into a 6600GT. Some Radeon 9500 Non-Pro/9800 SE cards also could have their extra pipelines unlocked. Also, some models of the GeForce 6800 could be softmodded.

Anyway, tech news sites have been reporting lately that people have had excellent success rates with this unlock. Here's a quote:

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>Quote:</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">That brings us to the funny part, the unlocked cores themselves. Remember the massive FUD campaigns about a broken core? By now there are thousands of people who have unlocked their three-core Phenoms, and the message boards are notably not filled with people complaining about the flaky fourth core. There may be one or two, but when I looked a few days ago, I couldn't find one.

This means that the fourth core is functional in all but a very small number of chips, and the chips are likely binned down to three cores for something other than work/fail. I would bet on power, but who knows? In any case, it might be interesting to see if y... [Truncated]

#13: well, as I said, the 8800gs/9600GSO's are 8800gts's with shaders disabled. The reason that some can be unlocked is because those ones have 512mb of RAM onboard, but some is disabled.

The ones that cannot be upgraded still have the same number of shaders as the 8800GTS, but you can't unlock them, as the 8800GTS bios requires all the memory chips to be installed.

If your card has a spot where it looks like there's a memory chip missing, then you can't hack it faster. But, the card itself, and the GPU core, are identical to the 8800gts, in either case.