If that is true that wont happen with most of X3's... Or if that somehow will work with all X3's, then I'm buying X3 @ X4 rig (for my brother).
unless i see a video of him doing it all clearly showing just the one chip being used then im a bit skeptical if its true then its awesome
Screens can obviously be doctored, but it certainly -looks- legit, doesn't it? If this is true, it might work in every case, but in most cases I would expect you to have a useless CPU core that spits out errors, since that is, I believe the reason they disabled the core in the first place. Otherwise, why would they sell them as x3s.
According to this article (http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardware/prozessoren/amd/2009/februar/phenom_ii_x3_phenom_ii_x4/) on the German web site ComputerBase, it seems to be true, but limited to a small batch of CPUs (produced during a certain week - probably during the fourth week in 2009) and only a few motherboards...
Anyone remember the unlockable pipes on the vanilla 6800? Same idea I guess. Too bad it's just a limited batch.
this looks 2 good to be true... It works with all X3 phenom or just the Phenom II series!? If its all X3, :banana: i just hit a jackpot.
It has been reported all over that you can do this, it is legit. However, I am miffed that AMD is being so harsh on MB people. I mean, if someone can activate a 4th core and generally have it stable, they should be able to. I think everyone understands that the 4th core didn't pass testing. It is like car manufacturing selling a car as a V5 because the 6th cylinder to a V6 wasn't working right. So some people get some hack together that gets the 6th cylinder working again (albiet not necessarily very well) and the car company sends rep to the repair shop saying the next the time car comes in for a repair disable that 6th cylinder.
I think that they requested the motherboard manufacturers release a BIOS for the problem. I doubt many will. I think its best to look at it in context, which is to assume this problem will be a common one, which is why they're trying to head it off at the motherboard level. If it were just an error on their lines then they would correct it and all would be well, but apparently it's something they can't (don't care to?) fix.
i have an X3 720 black edition on gigabyte MA790GP-UD4H board, and ai can confirm that ai have enabled the 4-th core. the processor in an 0904DPDW. only sunday i'll have enough time to test more this cpu and see if it's stable. i'll post some SS from cpuz and prime95 testing results.
If you mean fail for trying to force mobo manufacturers to change the BIOS to prevent unlocking, then I agree.