Unlocked tri core to quad

nVital

Yey got lucky, my 80€ athlon II x3 440 is now a phenom II x4 @ 3GHz.

What should I be expecting heat wise as an average? seems to be holding at 57C idle, and havent had it under too much load. Will run a prime95 test soon. Also when I reboot it stays unlocked.

EDIT: Im getting different temps from different software, BIOS says 51C, AMD OC tuner says 46C and SiSoft says 57C. Who do I take as the truth? The BIOS?

Lu Tze

You turned it into a Phenom Awesome:pac: How did you magic the extra cache memory onto the chip:pac:

nVital

Lu Tze wrote: »

How did you magic the extra cache memory onto the chip:pac:

Thats the catch with the newer athlons, that is, a fourth core but no L3 cache.

It never had L3 so I take the extra core and be happy.

Hank Scorpio

I dont understand why companies sell products as tri cores etc, when people can unlock them?

Could some-one explain it to me?

Is it pure manufacturing costs?

VenomIreland

nuxxx wrote: »

I dont understand why companies sell products as tri cores etc, when people can unlock them?

Could some-one explain it to me?

Is it pure manufacturing costs?

Some cores are damaged or don't work right.

Like my unlocked CPU. it draws 178 Watts according to HWMonitor.

BigEejit

its common for the locked core to be fubar, they can also be perfectly alright ... I have read somehwere that if the chips have been in production for some time you have a better chance of getting a good 4th core.

Overheal

I guess it was cheaper for AMD to spit out quad cores with a tolerance for only 3 functioning cores and market them as Tri-Cores. Kinda smart actually. Even LCD screens still have a pretty expensive manufacturing batch-failure rate. For bleeding edge processors the success rate on batches could easilly be in the low 20% - that drives up the cost immensely.

ED E

Read that they begin specifically started doping the tri's with working quads after that Korean(I think) managed the first unlock and tri sales spiked. The more success stories the better their sales.

Out of interest, is there much risk involved in attempting this?

nVital

As far as I've observed, the main worry is heat and power. Essentially the cpu would need to draw 25% more power. Hardware monitoring software seems to agree. Before unlock: ~ 95W After unlock: ~ 130W.

And if there's any crashes, you can always restore your bios.

Solitaire

Odds are its a fair whack lower than 95W; that's just a blanket TDP for any CPU which is going to fall somewhere between 65-95W at 100% load. Tri-cores are usually somewhere between 70-85W with the core locked; but as the cores are often dodgy for power consumption do not expect an even, predictable 33% increase in power usage!

Tea_Bag

sorry to half hijack this thread, but i unlocked my fourth core on my AMD athlon 2 x3 via the bios, and it seemed fine for about half an hour, when it would BSOD, and does it periodically. does this mean its damaged? should i be changing voltage or anything?

nVital

Tea_Bag wrote: »

sorry to half hijack this thread, but i unlocked my fourth core on my AMD athlon 2 x3 via the bios, and it seemed fine for about half an hour, when it would BSOD, and does it periodically. does this mean its damaged? should i be changing voltage or anything?

I'd say when the x4 phenoms have a defective core, but 3 good ones, they slap an athlon II x3 sticker on it. And other batches of good 4 cores get one just turned off. You need to get lucky it seems. The BSOD would be a worry.

ED E

Tea_Bag wrote: »

sorry to half hijack this thread, but i unlocked my fourth core on my AMD athlon 2 x3 via the bios, and it seemed fine for about half an hour, when it would BSOD, and does it periodically. does this mean its damaged? should i be changing voltage or anything?

Temps?

Tea_Bag

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

Temps?

anywhere between 19-25 degrees, but i havent tested it with the fourth core unlocked.

Tea_Bag

running stable... for now?


EDIT: just ran 3dmark06 and no crashes or anything..

3DMark Score 15428 3DMarks
CPU AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 B35 Processor

EDIT 2: i had core temp log the temps from PC startup and end after 3dmark finished, and the logs show a constant 21 degrees, even under 100% load... is it broken now~?

nVital

Tea_Bag wrote: »

a constant 21 degrees, even under 100% load... is it broken now~?

21 degrees sounds wrong. Run it under load for a while, then quickly restart the pc and check the temps using your bios. And your cpu is way under clocked, looks like 800MHz in that screen shot.

Overheal

Where did you get that magnificent goose?

Solitaire

nVital wrote: »

And your cpu is way under clocked, looks like 800MHz in that screen shot.

That's just the low p-state because the machine is idle, so the multi drops back to x4. The temps do sound wrong though, the core unlock must have messed up the software monitoring

Tea_Bag

Overheal wrote: »

Where did you get that magnificent goose?

found it trawling the interwebs...

just for you..

Solitaire wrote: »

That's just the low p-state because the machine is idle, so the multi drops back to x4. The temps do sound wrong though, the core unlock must have messed up the software monitoring

yeah when i first installed that i was like WTF!! but a min later and understepping returned to my (in)sane mind.:rolleyes:


The temp readings are all wonking now, currently showing 0 degrees:cool::cool:

quick google points to the unlocked core being the badguy, and disabling it makes CoreTemp return to normal.

I can live without a thermometer seeing as i have a perfectly stable quad core now:pac::pac:

i traced the BSOD's i was having back to overclocking the FSB (i think)

otherwise though, not a single crash since i unlocked it a few days ago, and i played a good lot of LFD2 on full settings and ran 3dmark06 5 or 6 times, untill i got bored.

my 3dmark is in the high 15000's (i think, cant remember clearly), but im not sure if thats good, as its comparing me to an i7 980x, and im also not sure 3dmark can see my GTX 460, because it lists it as just "GPU:
Generic VGA"