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AMD block Core unlocks on PII chips

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Old June 8th, 2009, 01:34 PM   Digg it!   #1 (permalink)
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AMD block Core unlocks on PII chips

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As many already know, it's possible to unlock the disabled cores on recent Phenom II processors, allowing you to get up to 4 cores working. Many who have tried this say that they gain some considerable speed, but there's a risk. The cores are disabled for a reason: they don't work properly. Because of this, AMD will, for example, sell a 4-core processor at 2-cores, for a much cheaper price.
AMD announced that it would release new microcode for motherboard BIOS updates that will disable the core-unlocking feature, preventing people from going to 4-cores if they purchased say a dual-core Phenom II.
The solution is not to upgrade your motherboard's BIOS if you have a board that can unlock cores.
But what if your motherboard maker releases BIOS updates that add or fix features? You would have to choose. Do you want fixes and improvements or do you want to stick with the ability to unlock CPU cores?

Uh oh AMD guys!

BUT.. what is that? Gigabyte to save the day!!?

Quote:
Gigabyte says you don't have to on its motherboards with Dual-BIOS technology.
Essentially, Gigabyte said that it will store the old microcode in the secondary BIOS chip, and allow you to do normal BIOS updates on the primary chip. Does this mean that you can't have a backup important firmware of your latest BIOS should the first chip corrupt? Gigabyte told us no. The company has upgraded its BIOS chips to be able to store extra information.

So, I guess everyone that wants/plans on doing this, needs a Gigabyte board now?

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Last edited by KarmaKiller : June 8th, 2009 at 01:46 PM.
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Old June 9th, 2009, 12:07 AM     #2 (permalink)
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AMD shouldn't really need to do that. They can just choose to not cover the warantee on CPU's that have had the extra core or cores unlocked.

Anyway The only thing now thats keeping my from gigabyte is the brightly colored motherboards.
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