Unlocking the Phenom II X2 555: 3.2GHz Quad-Core for $99
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 28, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
More Detail on the Phenom II X4 910e
I was actually surprised by the number of folks who were interested in the Phenom II X4 910e. It's a voltage binned Phenom II X4 running at 2.6GHz that falls in a 65W TDP envelope.
The performance is no different than the regular 95W Phenom II X4 910, it just uses a lot less power since it runs at a much lower voltage. Some of you wanted to know exactly what that voltage was. The table below gives you more detail on our CPU as well as a standard 125W Phenom II X4 965 BE (unfortunately I don't have any 95W X4s to compare it to):
| Processor | Idle Voltage | Load Voltage |
| AMD Phenom II X4 965 (125W) | 0.992V | 1.392V |
| AMD Phenom II X4 910e (65W) | 0.976V | 1.168V |
It's a pretty significant difference in voltage (and power consumption) but you do pay handsomely for the privilege. The 910e costs as much as a Phenom II X4 955: $169.
That seems to be it until we get Zosma and Thuban in late Q2. See you then.
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computerfarmer - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
The last 2 articles on these CPU's were good reading.I am looking for these to buy and finding them not available. I live in Canada. None of the stores or online places are listing them. Has any one found them for sale?
qwertymac93 - Sunday, January 31, 2010 - link
http://www.newegg.ca/">http://www.newegg.ca/computerfarmer - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link
Newegg does not have any of these new CPU's.Does anyone know when they will be available?
computerfarmer - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link
AMD Athlon II x4 635 is now available at newegg.ca for $130.99. Still waiting for others.computerfarmer - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link
Newegg does not have any of these new CPU's.Does anyone know when theyt will be available?
qwertymac93 - Sunday, January 31, 2010 - link
checktechwriters4breakfast - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
the reviews deliberately omitted the core unlocking possibility, because there was no mention of this when the 550 debuted this past summer.i suppose anand wanted to avoid the angry emails from readers demanding to know why their 55x didn't unlock.
btw there may be an option under acc that has values of +/- 1 to 10 that may help for unlock attempts that do not remain after reboot.
AdamB5000 - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
I tried this with my new 550BE. It unlocked but it would crash Photoshop and showed flickering issues with BF2. I tried underclocking the cpu and raising voltages with different combinations and nothing worked.I'm still happy with the X2 550's performance and stability at stock speeds. Shame it dropped $9 a week after my purchase (as did the memory I purchased).
Pederv - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
AMD makes both?Well that's confusing.
unclesharkey - Friday, January 29, 2010 - link
I got an X3 425 and was able to unlock the extra core and the cache. It seemed to work fine but then when I went to start my system the next day I had to hit the power button a couple times to get it to start up so I set it back to default and my system starts up fine. I have not really played around with it much but you can unlock them.