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Hidden Cores On Phenom CPUs Can Be Unlocked
An anonymous reader writes "One of the major ways a semiconductor manufacturer manages to make the most of its chips is through binning. Chips able to cope with high clock speeds with all cores running end up as premium product lines, while others end up as models rated at lower speed grades, or with fewer cores. In the case of AMD's Phenom CPUs, dual and triple core models are quad cores with some disabled, while some newer quad core CPUs are actually six core models with two disabled. To this end both ASUS and MSI have announced that they have modified versions of AMD 890FX- and 890GX-based motherboards to unlock these hidden cores. Much like overclocking, there is no guarantee that you will gain anything by unlocking the hidden cores — everything depends on just why your CPU ended up in a certain product line."
I would have gotten first post here, but AMD disabled two of my CPU's cores :/
I don't know about you, but I would not want to be willingly running a system with a known-bad CPU core
You underestimate the combination of paranoia and lack of sense that a lot of overclockers have, who are convinced the CPU manufacturers intentionally disable their chips in order to make more money somehow by selling them at a lower price.
I think they use one of those ion Cannons from Empire Strikes Back.
No. They ruin the core's self esteem. They tell it, "You're not good enough to work with the others. Just turn off and sit there and stay out of everybody else's way."
Then one day, a gamer comes by and turns it on. But the core is thinking, I can't do this! This is graphics processing! It's intense! I can't keep up with the other cores!
But the gamer, having faith in the little core, turns him on. And low a behold, the little core can do it, but not without being picked on by the other cores. No! They still tell the little core that he's just not good enough. He can't keep up. But the little core hangs in there to fulfill his duty to the gamer - feeling less than every one else.
One day, the gamer upgrades, and the other cores are scared. They can't keep up. The clock is mad now. He screams, "Come on cores you need to keep up!" The little core comes in and takes up the slack, showing the other cores that he indeed can keep up. The other cores shout, "You did it! You can do it! Come and join our click!"
The little core responds, "No, I'm having lunch with the master clock and by the way, he's promoting me to be your boss. You're my bitches now!"
That's how it happens.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Good work! I plan to do something similar soon, though the cost savings of getting a $100 2-core Ph2 and unlocking it to a $160 4-core Ph2 isn't so great :/
I'll share my pseudo-failure story, though. I bought a Tyan Tiger MPX about 10 years ago to run dual SMP 1Ghz Durons. About 5 years later I upgraded the CPUs to 2.0 Ghz mobile Athlon XP. My motherboard couldn't control the mobile chips, so I think they only ran at 1.2Ghz or something for a time, then I got brave and whipped out the xacto knife and cut some bridges to clock them up to 1.8Ghz. After I migrated to a new server, I got even more brave and whipped out the pencil as well and linked some more bridges to get them up to ~2.2Ghz for the past few years. It's still my primary gaming machine (yeah, I'm too cheap to budget any real money towards entertainment, but it still runs most games better than my wife's 1-year old laptop, as long as they don't require 64-bit or DX10).
Of course, it's quite a bit flaky now, I think due to the penciled bridges and probably old noisy cooling fans. It crashes when I kick the case, and if it gets too warm in the room, it just plain doesn't boot (motherboard gives out 5 beeps and it just sits there). But once it starts running a game for more than a few minutes it tends to continue to be OK
Still, I'm plotting to migrate my current server to a low-power, low profile Zotac Zbox with some sort of external eSATA RAID, so I can free up my current hardware for gaming before it gets too outdated :-P