cores can be disable on PII x4 cpu's

[gareth170]

hi

did anyone knew that cores can be disable on PII x4 cpu's? i was looking in my bios and i found a option to disable cores.

single core


dual core


tri core


quad core



im wondering if i run it as a dual core maybe it'll overclock more. what u guys think?

 

[gareth170]

yeah it will be fun. tbh dual core feels quicker, im guessing because the L3 is only shared with 2 core..

 

[gareth170]

Can you run Superpi with only 1 core enabled and then with all 4?

yep. i will do now... 1M test?

 

[gareth170]

Can you run Superpi with only 1 core enabled and then with all 4?

single core



quad core

 

[gareth170]

i just tryed overclocking alittle more in dual core mode, i only get 100mhz extra on the same voltage.

 

[gareth170]

y would you want to disable cores? defeats the point of having a quad if you only need a dual

because the L3 cache is shared by 4 cores but by disableing cores it frees up the L3 cache to only the cores thats enabled which should be better performance in gaming.

then when u wanna use encoding software just put it in quad core mode.

 

[gareth170]

Don't the cores only use the L3 they need to though? So the unused two will barley be consuming L3?

yes but most of the time all of the cores are doing something. cores never stay at 0% even when your doing nothing. so being able to disable 1 or 2 cores would give that little bit more to the other cores.

 

[gareth170]

this is a well old feature....Even early quad boards had it iirc, or is it just new to AMD?

new to amd.
not all amd boards as this feature, i think only afew.

maybe its a well old feature for intel. but could u turn off just one core and run the intel quad as a 3 core? i don't think so because the qxxxx are 2 dual cores put together.

 

[gareth170]

u can have application profiles via AMD's overdrive, like selecting cores for apps. im not sure if its only on am3 tho.