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Phenom II 720 unlock forth core?

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  • Core
  • Unlock
  • Phenom
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November 29, 2010 4:53:34 AM

It's time for another Good idea, Bad idea.

I've got an MSI 980a-G65 with a Phenom II 720 at stock speeds and I was wondering if there really would be a significant increase in performance and if it's worth it to unlock the fourth core. I've practically been brainwashed that unlocking the fourth core is a bad idea as it was disabled because it failed some sort of test at the factory.

If it is how do I unlock that extra core?

I'm running Vista business 64, phenom II 720, GTX460 768mb (later this evening it will be sli) 4 gig O DDR3 1333 ram (will be 8 later), and three 500GB hard drives that will hopefully be turning into a raid as soon as I learn how to do RAID.

More about : phenom 720 unlock core

a c 120 à CPUs
November 29, 2010 5:26:27 AM

Dont bother upping your ram to 8Gb unless you use a lot of video editing type stuff, adobe cs5 etc, spend the money on Win7 instead :) 
unlocking cores isn't guarenteed, or necessarily 'a bad idea' I've unlocked 2 X3 435s no problems, your core may have been locked due to being less than 100% in testing, but it may also just have been disabled to fill a gap in the market,only one way to find out :p  http://event.msi.com/mb/unlockcpu/
look down the bottom of that page for info, should work on your board I think
Moto

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November 29, 2010 5:45:02 AM

Looks like this utility only works on ATI chipsets and not nvidia. Bummer. Are there any other ways or programs to do this with
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November 29, 2010 5:54:49 AM

Can the forth core be unlocked permanently from another board, adn then put back into this nvidia board?. If it can only be done on an AMD 700 series I've got a 790 that might could do it if I got some DDR2 to start it up with. if not I'll settle for some OCing schooling if I can bump it up to 3.2 or so without hurting it.
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a c 120 à CPUs
November 29, 2010 5:56:03 AM

Not sure to be honest, I avoid intel lol,
so theres no 'cell menu' option in your bios for that?
I know the Oc genie is a chipset limited thing, but the bios should have something
Moto
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November 29, 2010 6:13:03 AM

This is AMD.
I don't like to mess with the bios if it can be avoided. There is a deal called Nvidia core calibration in the bios. Not really sure what it really does and if I should even try to use it. I think Asus has a program for this chipset that supposedly unlocks the extra core without going into the bios or is maybe modifying the bios while the computer is logged in
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a c 120 à CPUs
November 29, 2010 6:16:18 AM

Sorry for intel, I meant Nvidia...
but that core calibration thing looks like the menu you want to be playing in,
AsRocks version is A.c.c. advanced core calibration,
take a look in that menu and see what you find, I'll stay up a bit longer for you :) 
Moto
P.S. cores 0,1 and 2 are your three 'normal' cores
*further edit, no, if you unlock it on another board it will be locked on the next board you put it in, the info is stored on your bios chip**
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November 29, 2010 6:19:23 AM

SO I should enable this nvidia core calibration thing in the bios then?
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a c 120 à CPUs
November 29, 2010 6:23:50 AM

yes, have a look in there for an option to enable core 3, and see how you go, if it bluescreens, a tiny tweak on the cpu voltage may help, if not then its not an unlocker, but O/c'ing is still an option ofc :) 
Moto
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November 29, 2010 6:29:40 AM

I think I'll stick to OC. I just read a ton of forums all over the place a a few said the CPU never ran the same after it failed to be stable when unlocked.

What should I set tings to the stock is 2.8, I need a little higher to make my games a bit more stable. I think that may be my problem or I need some sort of C++ updates or something. Although this should wipe the floor with my old 3ghz 6000+ even at 2.8ghz
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Best solution

a c 120 à CPUs
November 29, 2010 6:43:16 AM

You want to check out http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/258573-11-black-edi..., read as much as you can cause the guys put a lot of work into it,
main things,
tiny steps at a time,
One change at a time,
write down last working settings so you can recover them if needs be,
I'm off to sleep man, have fun and I'll check back later
Moto
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November 29, 2010 5:27:12 PM

For OCing the 720BE you should just need to up the multiplier. No other changes are necessary. You should be able to get to 3.2ghz (16x multi) safely with the stock cooler. I have mine OC'd to 3.4 with the 4th core unlocked and an aftermarket cooler.
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November 29, 2010 5:31:27 PM

OC'd to 2.9ghz and the boot screen all comes up at the same time now, rather than a black back ground with a white text box and then a pretty back ground. it's not snappier or anything though. Starting to wonder if this processor has been defective since I got it, I know the 965 I bought a few days ago was
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November 29, 2010 5:39:32 PM

I'm not sure what you mean by being snappier. Have you tried running any benchmarks stock vs. OC. That's the best way to find out if it was worth the trouble. You can run 3dmark or monitor your FPS on your games.

Also 100mhz isn't going to make that big of a difference.
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November 29, 2010 5:49:39 PM

I think I have a copy of 3D mark around here somewhere that came with my old 260

By snappier I mean when I click on something it just pops up, systems been a bit sluggish. Going top put that incompatible ram back in and see if it does anything different than it did with the bad CPU
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November 30, 2010 11:16:29 PM

Best answer selected by thecountrygoth.
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a c 120 à CPUs
December 1, 2010 5:52:36 AM

Hey man, Thanks for B.a. hope the clockings going well for ye :) 
Moto
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