Does anyone know if unlocking the 4th core on the first generation phenom X3's will work with these chipsets as well?

i used a Gigabyte 790gx board, x3 710 chip. Used AMD's own overclocking software, Over drive. Turn advanced features on, over clock with all cores at 12%. Boots with 4th core on. Runs stable. no heat problems on any of the cores and all core speeds are 2.6Mhz. You would think these chips would have a bad core, But mine runs just fine. i wanna hear about one frying, which i havent yet. Also it gets labeled as a phenom II x4 10 in cpu-z. x10 is AMDs title for 2.6mhz. cheers

Right now Intel is the choice for almost all the tweakers and modders because of its overclockability. Now AMD has something Intel doesn't.

I think there's a certain appeal to getting something for nothing that might steal some of Intel's market share for those trying to build a less expensive system. Enabling the 4th core is getting 33% more than you paid for right off the bat, even before overclocking.

If nothing else its gets some publicity in the tweaker/modder community that AMD has been lacking for the last couple years since Intel took the performance crown on the high end.

Between those two factors, AMD probably makes up whatever they lose due to people who would have otherwise bought an AMD quad core opting for the tri core instead.

Why pay for our 4 core products when you can buy tricore for a lower price and still get 4 cores? This apparently is from the "How to Lose Even More Money for Dummies" book.

Alas, I see the master plan here... while SOME tri-cores may be able to be unlocked, could AMD limit this to a few lots while customers try to find the 'good' ones? It's not like they are probably returnable? (Hey I got a tri-core chip that only has 3 cores working, I want my money back!)

Is this the proverbial crack deal, trying to hand out the good stuff for free/cheap and then after it catches on start cutting down the package?

AMD is probably quietly asking motherboard manufacturers to remove this with new motherboards. Or thinking of a way to permanently disable the chip. While smart on a marketing level, who knows how well that fourth core will really work?

And it probably is hurting the sales of their quad core processors.

I haven't used an AMD board in a couple years but isn't ACC an attribute of the SB750? If so would this be possible on the more Crossfire friendly 790FX + SB750 combos? That would really make for a nice machine.

@Paul
That might have been their original intention combined with the idea of just soft-locking a perfectly good core to meet market demand. This is exactly why AMD isn't confirming anything about unlocking the fourth core because it isn't 100% guaranteed to work well or at all. Well played AMD.

They are...

I thought the x3's where a way of selling x4's with a failed core?

SB700 doesn't have ACC so above poster is correct; it must be SB750.

Any other 790GX + SB750, really