Just upgraded my system. Went from: DFI NF4 Lanparty 939 SLI 4400+ 2gig of DDR400 To: ASUS AM3 Phenom II 555 BE X2 4gig of DDR1333 (plus a huge CoolerMaster Cooler) ASUS has an easy unlocker.... just switch the switch. After my Win7 install and updates, I shutdown, and hit the switch. Rebooted to see that it unlocked one more core. Although, CPUZ says it's an X4. Before and After shots below....
No I haven't. Not yet. I will though. I've been busy installing software. No troubles so far. I'm curious as to why you say "4" cores? Yes, CPUz says it is a X4 in the name, but on the bottom, it only shows 3 cores. Am I misreading it? So far so good. Glad I got Win7 Pro, as I'm able to run older software (for example Acrobat Pro 6). Win7 is zippy, that's for sure. My challenge is, I can't really compare the hardware, 'cause my frame of reference would be the OS, but that's changed. So, I don't know if the hardware is amazingly better... know what I mean? If I kept XP on it, I'd "see" a huge performance increase. A test will come when I play CS:Source. I'm certain, I'll see a pretty significant increase in that. And, when I do some audio/video work. I'm expecting compiling time to drop dramatically (with Adobe Premier and Audition). So far so good though. I recommend the change. I like this board (cause it has firewire, IDE, plus all the new goodies). The cooler I bought is too big for the memory I have, but that's all fixable when I upgrade in the future. (the cooler extends over DIMM1, and with the heatseeks on this mem, they extend too high. But putting them in DIMM2 and 4, all is well. I'm probably going to see a big increase from my vid card, as you know, it's so CPU dependent. I did all this for less than $450 (plus Win7). Inexpensive, imo.
Yes! 3 cores for the price of 2. I am curious though... When I did the unlock and the system booted, it found new hardware.... 4 x's (one for each core), if I remember right. It went by fast. I didn't look yet, but I am now curious as to how many cores Windows sees.
Make sure it passes at least 10 rounds of Intel Burn Test at Maximum. If it doesn't, your cores are not stable. deltatux
if you go to device manager in the control panel and click on processors it should tell you how many cores windows see's.
Whelp. Yes, Windows sees 3-cores. Should I use SiSoft for the burn test? Or is there a better proggy to use?
