Legit Reviews

so i was reading up on an athalon x2 255 or something and some person said i have heard of people unlocking 2 additional cores well a bright idea popped into my head could i unlock 1 or 2 more cores in my phenom x4 955 black edition cpu just wondering im a 16 yr old kid starting to get into building
thanks guys:D

No you can't because all cores that are physically present on your CPU are already unlocked.

Just to rephrase what Velo:Sity said;

The Phenom II Deneb CPUs only support up to four Cores, so your 955 already has all the cores available, so you can't unlock anymore.
If you had a PhenomII or AthlonII dual-core/triple-core you could possibly unlock the missing cores. AMD sometimes have to disable a core or two to meet the consumer demands.
Ex: More people want to buy a Athlon X2 255, but none are in stock/ready, so they mod some of the higher end CPUs into those.

The PhenomII six-cores use the Thuban core design...and all Thuban CPUs are six-cores.

thanks a lot guys so much help !

you can unlock another core if u have AMD Phenom II X4 960T Black Edition - HD96ZTWFK4DGR (HD96ZTWFGRBOX) which based on thuban

Yes, but that is a Zosma, and all 955s are Denebs as far as I know, and Denebs physically have only 4 cores.

pckid9234 wrote:so i was reading up on an athalon x2 255 or something and some person said i have heard of people unlocking 2 additional cores well a bright idea popped into my head could i unlock 1 or 2 more cores in my phenom x4 955 black edition cpu just wondering im a 16 yr old kid starting to get into building
thanks guys:D

the 955 is deneb which is a native QuadCore (x4) so no you can't unlock anything else, though the 955 is one of the best overclockers on the AMD side, with the right motherboard, RAM, cooling and Power supply you can get it to run as well as any six-core

I have the 955 black and I was just wondering...how can I tell if speeding up the CPU will actually result in better overall performance?? I was copying 4 gig worth of pics from one drive to another and the task manager said the CPU usage was at like 15% yet the tranfer was going slowly. How can I tell if some other part of my system is actually limiting the CPU and thus OCing it will not actaully help so I should preserve my CPU by not pushing it unnecessarily?

moving files and such doesnt require a lot of CPU usage. The best way to see if you are getting better performance from overclocking is by either running benchmarks, or the best way is to use programs that require a lot of CPU usage. Ie. video editing, games (A good portion respond quite well to higher clock speeds), photochopping, are just a few i can think of right off hand. But if you are just using your compy as an internet box and watching movies then overclocking would be pointless. If you are doing any of the listed ways to test your overclock, then you can see a boost by overclocking, but to see if it is worth it is determined by you alone.

Is there a utility that "records" CPU load or usage accross all 4 cores that I can look at after playing a game for a bit? It would be nice if I could boot up Diablo 3 and play for a while and then look at the numerical data for my GPU, CPU, and RAM. Then I could tweak the settings and play the same part of the game again to measure results of my tweaking.

hmm, for games use fraps, utilities you have to see if that program has a timer log of some sort. i not sure where you stand on benchmarking programs, that would be my suggestion. 3dmarks, cine bench, sisoft, wPrime, pcmark wold be a good start

For most programs ,phenom 955 is good enough . Now games use VIDEO CARDS more than CPU .If you feel some problem there , updating your video card would be a good choice .

Most games respond well to Higher core frequencies, there are a few that don't.

I increased the multi to 19 so I am running at 3.7 and it did help in the situation where 10+ bad guys spawn all at once. I guess with "quiet cool" it took a micro sec. for the CPU to increase its speed. With the OC set its at 3.7 quad all the time ts all smoother.

I would turn off the cool and quiet feature, nice overclock

I have 2 phenom II 965BEs ,a 1090T and just got a 960T. I asked this question long ago when i went from my first AMD x3 720 on an Asus M4A790 EVO XTD. it amazed me as it changed to the 4core immediately upon boot..
I asked about the next 4cores as soon as the thuban came out, thinking of the 720 experience. I got the same types of answers as posted here.
I had no luck with the 960T on the same Asus 790 board. just would not post or blue screened if i had the core unlock option. It works very well as the 4core though and overclocks at very low volt increases. I started high and kept backing down. I began at 1.4750 and got all the way back to 1.3125 and boots no problem now.
I find my 4core 965be i have at 3.8 with the multiplier bumped up and only minimal fsb increases , to 220, has run steadily and constantly for a year at that speed no issues. i put a 128G crucial m4 and now get instantaneous response from everything from iTunes to Netflix via WMC. no wait. The 1090T is no faster and i have it up to 4.2G only it runs hotter as ambient temp goes up, the proportion of difference from ambient to load grows in a disproportionately higher level than the 965be doing the same thing in the same room. I get that type of response from the 960T. each is cooled with air only , CM 212 Hyper plus and Xig.1284ee or 1283s and all coolers use push/pull higher speed fans on controllers delta 3k panaflo and Scythe slipstream and ultrakaze3k. all of these set ups keep the cpu temps well within acceptable temps. idle temps are in the under 90ºF and only the 1090T @4.2Gs will hit 126ºF on full load 100% over 20mins and over 72ºF room temp(74-77º)
So,all my stock cores seem to operate quite well , 2never could be overclocked and stayed 4,one was already 6core and the fourth one never made the OC was only 4core , not 2 lurking waiting to be unleashed. My only success in core unlocking ,the 3core 720BE, worked in 4core and kept very cool, only ,it was just fine and appeared as fast in 3core mode. so i kept it at 3. it ran a few degrees cooler and i could overclock the 3cores any way. all i needed back then .
thanks,
John

Did you ever try just unlocking one extra core on the 960t for 5 cores instead of 6 maybe the other core was a dud