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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jive - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
althought this is old thread I felt I needed to post it here. I was astonished to find out the entire iX line of intel desktop cpus lack support for ECC memory. Although it's niche market but when considering workstation or file server build upon pc hardware there is real demand for ECC memory if you run long simulations or other HPC stuff.It's odd that no-one has noticed this, or if has hasn't bothered to mention it. I chose 555BE for my next workstation CPU just because of this reason.
Snoopykins - Saturday, February 13, 2010 - link
I would LOVE to build a computer with this idea. Does anyone know if the Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 would work with this? It is included in a build on another website. the build is as follows:A. Rosewill R220 (CASE)
B. Stock AMD CPU Cooler (might upgrade)
C. Sapphire Radeon HD 5770 (GPU)
D. Cooler Master RS-460 (PSU)
E. Seagate 500GB Barracuda 7200.12 (HDD)
F. Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 (Motherboard)
G. Patriot 4GB DDR2/800 (RAM)
H. AMD Athlon II X4 620 (want to swap with phenom II 550 BE)
I. Samsung SH-S223C (Optical Drive)
J. Windows 7 Home Premium OEM (OS)
This came to $647.00 total according to them. Could I swap out the CPU for a Phenom II 550 BE and unlock it? If so is any idea how likely I am to be able to unlock it? A response would be AMAZING as I am not very good at this. Thank you all for your help, Snoopykins
Venatorus - Sunday, November 21, 2010 - link
dude, you got that build from a maximum PC magazine :)Oceanborn75 - Sunday, January 30, 2011 - link
NO it won't! for the simple reason this motherboard doesn't accept ANY 125w CPUs...the phenoms X2s are 80w CPU's and as soon as you unlock the 4 cores it becomes a 125w one....Maybe it will work unlocking a third core but I have no idea how on that board
computerfarmer - Saturday, February 6, 2010 - link
I too am waiting for the AMD Phenom II x2 555 to be released. Any news on when?woobri - Friday, February 5, 2010 - link
When's the 555 going to be released? Looking to give this unlocking a try...[First post!]
bupkus - Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - link
Perhaps because of this article NewEgg has bumped the price of both of their Phenom II X2s.bupkus - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - link
Ok, back to $90 for the 550.chromatix - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
I wonder if the reason the 910e is so interesting is because, as a high-quality part, it might still overclock well, and the fourth core might also turn out to be available. The low multiplier might be a handicap though.Even ignoring the overclocking possibilities, though, this would be a good chip for a HTPC, since the low TDP allows for silent cooling, and it has plenty of performance for encoding videos. The fourth core would then be a nice bonus if available.
chromatix - Saturday, January 30, 2010 - link
Self-reply for a correction: I forgot it was already an X4, not an X3. Sigh.