Unlocking Cores

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Since the announcement of AMD’s latest chipset, the 890GX, I was having thoughts of a new media centre. The only thing stopping me was cost, 2 weeks till pay day and the quad core I wanted was looking a bit out of my price range, so I thought I’d give core unlocking a go. Until I found out that AMD had removed ACC from the new chipset – Bah!

No surprise really, but I picked up an ASUS M4A89GTD Pro with USB 3.0 (Im thinking of external HDD storage at some point) and bought a Phenom x2 555, to test out the ASUS Core Unlocker feature which in all honesty, I was pretty sceptical about. ACC blocked by AMD in the new chipset and our new motherboard claiming it could still do it...I had to see that for myself.

So from the ASUS Press Release, ASUS claim three different ways to unlock the locked CPU’s, pretty neat – To the BIOS we go.

Ok, so the ACC option is well and truly gone on the new chipset, but has been replaced with “Core Unlocker” which is found under Advanced > CPU Config >

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I enabled it, to get the “Active CPU Cores” option appear

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One thing I did find pretty cool, was that the number of activated cores show up on the boot screens:

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Sandra & CPU-Z with 4 Cores

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Sandra & CPU-Z with 3 Cores

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Then I figured I’d try another method of unlocking the cores, after all, I know my CPU would unlock all 4 cores...
By moving the switch on the board itself, by the RAM slots, I managed to get the same results

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Doesnt seem so, but the additional cores need extra voltage to be completely stable it seems.
 
I wonder if this motherboard will be able to unlock 6 cores when AMD launch their new 4 core chips based upon 6 core dies later in the year, or will it need a BIOS update from Asus?.
 
anadtech's Review of the board: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3762

And to quote:

"We managed to squeeze a perfectly respectable 4GHz from our Phenom X2 555 processor, unlocked to 4 cores with 8GB of memory running DDR-3 1600MHz 6-7-6-18 timings at a 1T Command Rate using our Corsair Dominator GT modules."

Ok, really tempted now... hrmm... oh and this as well:

"Using more conventional and affordable memory like the Corsair 1600MHz Dominator kits, we obtained an easy 3.6GHz overclock with CAS 9-9-9-27 timings at a 2T Command Rate. "
 
Update:


Take a look at H e x u s for a story regarding the 6 core unlocking from a quad :O
 
Not surprising really......

Just a shame my Mobo wont get a BIOS update to support the 960T....well i dont think it will..:(

Otherwise, id buy one of these like a shot

but without a BIOS update, add in the cost of a new Mobo and new DDR3 Ram...well i dont think its worth it until more games use more than 4 cores...
 
it does hinder overclocking slightly. Obviously it varies from chip to chip. In quad, mine is stable at 4ghz, but will not go even 20mhz higher no matter how many extra volts. in dual, its stable at 4.1, and will do just about anything but prime at 4.2
 
Does the quality of board effect the chances of unlocking?

eg, Would I be more likely to get a quad out of a 555 with this board over a £60 board with the normal ACC feature?
 
I bought the msi 890gxm board, the shipped bios had no unlocking features on, updated the bios and there was the option to allow acc as soon as I enabled it and rebooted pc locked up..... which was a shame as it was a nice little board, went back to my asus 785 and my 555 unlocks a treat and have managed 3.7ghz stable with under 1.4v :)
 
tgomas said:
Does the quality of board effect the chances of unlocking?

eg, Would I be more likely to get a quad out of a 555 with this board over a £60 board with the normal ACC feature?
Click to expand...

i think its more to do with the chip tbh, ive gone through 2 555's to get one that unlocked
 
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