Gaming AMD unlocking shenanigans.

[Cermage]

The new Zosma chip (locked thuban) Phenom II x4 960T, seems to be able to unlock into a full fledged thuban (6-core) with the 890gx chipset pretty easily.

http://en.ocworkbench.com/tech/amd-phenom-...a-phenom-ii-x6/
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=24259

its pretty likely that amd are now selling off fully functioning thubans and simply locking them away in order to boost sales. like what they did with the x2 550 c3.

pretty good value for money though, still that chance you recieve a dodgy chip and won't be able to unlock those extra 2 cores. but who cares you've got a rather decent quad.

 

[BoxShot]

Sweet! I hope some processors go down in price sometime soon.

One thing I like about AMD is that I might get more than what I bought. (Still need to build a computer

)

 

[DSGamer64]

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...N82E16813157188

That is the motherboard I believe, seems like a reasonable price for that chipset to me though. Looks like I am holding off until they release the updated X4 processors so I can unlock one and get more cache out of it.

 

[Raki]

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?...N82E16813157188

That is the motherboard I believe, seems like a reasonable price for that chipset to me though. Looks like I am holding off until they release the updated X4 processors so I can unlock one and get more cache out of it.

AsRock isn't that good though
Also I don't like the GX chipsets...the IGP takes away some PCI-E lanes

 

[DSGamer64]

ASRock make some pretty good boards, that one doesn't have great reviews because the people who are using it can't use the chipset to it's full potential yet. That board has 3 PCI-e lanes on it, so you could potentially run 3-way Crossfire on it, plus it has a built in HD 4290 graphics chip which is ok for basic applications, you could Crossfire it with a dedicated graphics card I believe but it wouldn't be that good.

 

[Raki]

ASRock make some pretty good boards, that one doesn't have great reviews because the people who are using it can't use the chipset to it's full potential yet. That board has 3 PCI-e lanes on it, so you could potentially run 3-way Crossfire on it, plus it has a built in HD 4290 graphics chip which is ok for basic applications, you could Crossfire it with a dedicated graphics card I believe but it wouldn't be that good.

If I'm not totally mistaken you have 32 PCI-E lanes on a 890FX chipset and some less (about 28?) on a 890GX, so you would get 8x/8x when using 2-way CF instead of 16x/16x 2-way CF which can hurt High-End-graphiccards
Well, from what I know AsRock isn't that good quality, but some boards may be better than other

 

[Joe88]

asrock has fallen to the bottom of the barrel, they used to make good boards but now put out junk
same as asus, other mobo makers have taken the throne

anyway the whole 16x vs 8x doesnt really mean anything
they tested a 5870 crossfirex setup and only found a 2% difference in performance from each other

 

[playallday]

I'm using a ASRock 780GXE and its been working great for me (over a year now). Remember, all motherboards do have a high DOA rate.

 

[DSGamer64]

asrock has fallen to the bottom of the barrel, they used to make good boards but now put out junk
same as asus, other mobo makers have taken the throne

anyway the whole 16x vs 8x doesnt really mean anything
they tested a 5870 crossfirex setup and only found a 2% difference in performance from each other

Funny, many Asus boards on Newegg have great reviews. Hell, I have a 6 year old HP desktop in the basement with an Asus motherboard in it and it's still running fine.

 

[Joe88]

asrock has fallen to the bottom of the barrel, they used to make good boards but now put out junk
same as asus, other mobo makers have taken the throne

anyway the whole 16x vs 8x doesnt really mean anything
they tested a 5870 crossfirex setup and only found a 2% difference in performance from each other

Funny, many Asus boards on Newegg have great reviews. Hell, I have a 6 year old HP desktop in the basement with an Asus motherboard in it and it's still running fine.

I consider anything with 100+ reviews and at least a 70-80% a great review
not a lot of asus boards have this, few do
they have had a large amount of DOA's shipping out on top of that, much more then other manufacturers

these troubles started when they started dipping their fingers in many other area's
such as routers, gfx cards, screens, and other stuff
the other stuff they make is pretty good though interestingly enough compared to other brands
their motherboard business have taken a hit though, I noticed this long ago as well as many other people, they just arnt putting out top quality boards anymore on top of that they are expensive for limited features compared to other brands

and what does a 6 year old hp have to do with anything?
I did say: they used to put out good boards, meaning past tense

 

[Westside]

asrock has fallen to the bottom of the barrel, they used to make good boards but now put out junk
same as asus, other mobo makers have taken the throne

anyway the whole 16x vs 8x doesnt really mean anything
they tested a 5870 crossfirex setup and only found a 2% difference in performance from each other

Funny, many Asus boards on Newegg have great reviews. Hell, I have a 6 year old HP desktop in the basement with an Asus motherboard in it and it's still running fine.

I consider anything with 100+ reviews and at least a 70-80% a great review
not a lot of asus boards have this, few do
they have had a large amount of DOA's shipping out on top of that, much more then other manufacturers

these troubles started when they started dipping their fingers in many other area's
such as routers, gfx cards, screens, and other stuff
the other stuff they make is pretty good though interestingly enough compared to other brands
their motherboard business have taken a hit though, I noticed this long ago as well as many other people, they just arnt putting out top quality boards anymore on top of that they are expensive for limited features compared to other brands

and what does a 6 year old hp have to do with anything?
I did say: they used to put out good boards, meaning past tense

Sorry for being off topic, but what is a good mobo these days? I'm a little behind, also for Intel is it the same?

 

[DSGamer64]

Gigabyte seems to be the best these days, that is what I am going for on my upcoming build. MSI make some good boards too by the sounds of it, have been fairly happy with my Wind netbook the last several months aside from the latches not being the best to hold the 9 cell battery it came with, but that is more of a casing issue then anything else.

 

[YourHero]

Yea it seems AMD decided they would single out the cpu line by making all x6 with locked cores. Its always a gamble people. The chance 1 or 2 cores is defective can happen often. They usually sell locked cpus that way because of defective cores, why waste it completely when its still able to be sold?