Unlocking the 4th core on an AMD Phenom II X3

[Megatron]

Anyone done this?

I'm building a new PC soon (cheap) for the female and was thinking about using her equipment as a guinea pig. The worst thing that can happen is that she only gets 3 cores, which she doesn't really care as long as she can surf and watch videos, etc.

I was going to use the information here as a reference, seems pretty cool if I get a good chip:

http://www.overclock.net/amd-cpus/53550 ... guide.html

[McNevin]

Seems like a cool thing to try. Only side effects are the loss of core temp monitoring, and increased CPU heat. Should be fine to surf the inerweb/facebooks/youtube.

[R3C]

I'm running my HTPC off a Phenom II X3, and it's running so well, that the extra heat wasn't worth the benefit should the extra core unlock well. For the tasks you're mentioning even three cores of that are more than enough. (so, unless you just want to experiment, which would be completely understood from my point of view ) I wouldn't even bother. Lower heat=slowerfans=quieter operation, and still damned fast. Not i7 fast, but fast not less than...

[N3ur0n0saurusl2exs0r!!!]

The extra heat is negligible, in fact when utilizing the tri-core through unlocking most of the time the heat will be less than before because the peak temperature drops...although the heat volume increases slightly by about 42 microjoules...

[R3C]

Well then...