Best upgrade experience EVAH! AMD tri core -> quad core

[dalewb]

I finally upgraded after 4 years from my AMD Athlon X2 3800+. I opted for a budget AM3 motherboard, the MSI 770-C45 (which incidentally has received good reviews, such as the one at http://preview.tinyurl.com/yax36gs) and the AMD Phenom X3 720 and 4GB Crucial DDR3 ram - all for under 3 bills.

I tore out the old stuff, shoved in the new stuff, wired everything up and turned on the power... and it just worked. Booted up, Windows 7 took over and when the desktop appeared a voice said "It seems you have installed new hardware. Let me find the drivers for that and install it for you." Well, there wasn't really a voice, but that's how windows responded. The whole process took me no more than 2 hours.

I had heard the 4th core could be unlocked, but wasn't too concerned about it. I read around this forum and elsewhere how to do it (setting ACC to auto), and on my first attempt it didn't work. But I went back into the BIOS this evening and enabled a bunch of stuff and when it rebooted, the CPU was identified as an "AMD Phenom II X4 20."

This is a budget MSI motherboard, fellas. It didn't even cost a single Benjamin. I don't have a free game or lots of fancy extras, but I do have a freaking awesome and cheap upgraded PC now with 4 cores - woot to AMD!

Oh yeah by the way, my "windows experience score" on the processor went from 4.9 to 6.7
=)

 

[error8]

Very nice. Now go ahead and see how many more mhz you can squeeze out of it.

 

[Rhoxed]

check my sig

i rejoiced for this 720BE when it first appeared (same with my 940BE)
and i really couldn't be happier with either of them, both GREAT procs for the money

any AMD proc that is unlockable is surely an intel beater for the same price.

i have 2 machines that will run ANYTHING very gracefully all for less than a top of the line i7

 

[Plimogz]

I'm in a similar situation with my X3 -- actually I've got two here, but only one of the two shows up as 4 cores in the Windows Task Manager, while the other one shows up as a single core and throws up errors like crazy. Anyway.
Still, one out of two isn't bad... Thing is, I keep worrying that AMD didn't just disable a core and sell it as an X3 simply to satisfy demand, but rather because there was some minor defect in there somewhere.

Can anyone suggest a course of testing which could put any reasonable doubts to rest? Or am I just being paranoid?

And bare in mind that as I write this the so-called X4 20 is finishing up 14 loops of Intel Burn Test w\ 3000MB stress, (found out the long way that IntelBurnTest 2.3 shows errors when setting the number of threads manually to 3-4)
But like I read somewhere, passing IBT really only proves that a cpu can pass IBT, know what I mean?

 

[drizek]

"rather because there was some minor defect in there somewhere. "

Thats exactly what it is, although there appear to have been some batches which were working quad cores.

 

[Plimogz]

Right. But it seems possible to me that somewhere, in between the X3's which obviously can't run on 4 cores (obvious because they won't POST, or corrupt windows after a couple of reboots, etc.)
and the hypothetical fully functional, unlocked X3-->X4's, there must be some chips which very nearly are perfectly functional quads, but aren't because of some slight flaw; a flaw which wouldn't
be immediately apparent with just normal day to day use.

I mean, i love the idea of 4 cores for the price of 3, I do; but I'm more of a "it's-got-to-be-able-to-pass-every-single-test-i-can-throw-at-it-before-i-call-it-stable" than a
"it-hasn't-crashed-yet, ergo-it-is-stable-enough" kind of guy, so I keep trying to think of things i could have this newfound quad-core do in order to make sure it works like any other cpu shipped by AMD
unfortunately i just don't understand enough about how these things work to really know where to start; running the stress tests I use to check stability when overclocking doesn't seem like enough in this case. dunno.
Then again, I was never this fussy when I unlocked the extra pipelines on my GTO2 (then again, that wasn't a CPU either...)

sigh,
Any Ideas?

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: Plimogz

Can anyone suggest a course of testing which could put any reasonable doubts to rest? Or am I just being paranoid?

Run LinX, Prime95, OCCT, and . . . whatever else comes to mind.

 

[manimal]

I unlocked the extra cache on two of the four X4 805s I purchased for 79 each at frys two days ago, 79 bucks for 6mb l3 cache goodness is awesome. After testing each I am now trying to overclock one and its testing out at 3.4ish @ 1.4V. Bang for the buck goodness!

 

[bobsmith1492]

I did an even better jump: C2D 6300 (dual core, 1.83GHZ) to i5 (quad core, 2.66+turbo). SupCom is so buttery smooth now...

 

[Visaoni]

Originally posted by: Plimogz
Right. But it seems possible to me that somewhere, in between the X3's which obviously can't run on 4 cores (obvious because they won't POST, or corrupt windows after a couple of reboots, etc.)
and the hypothetical fully functional, unlocked X3-->X4's, there must be some chips which very nearly are perfectly functional quads, but aren't because of some slight flaw; a flaw which wouldn't
be immediately apparent with just normal day to day use.

I mean, i love the idea of 4 cores for the price of 3, I do; but I'm more of a "it's-got-to-be-able-to-pass-every-single-test-i-can-throw-at-it-before-i-call-it-stable" than a
"it-hasn't-crashed-yet, ergo-it-is-stable-enough" kind of guy, so I keep trying to think of things i could have this newfound quad-core do in order to make sure it works like any other cpu shipped by AMD
unfortunately i just don't understand enough about how these things work to really know where to start; running the stress tests I use to check stability when overclocking doesn't seem like enough in this case. dunno.
Then again, I was never this fussy when I unlocked the extra pipelines on my GTO2 (then again, that wasn't a CPU either...)

sigh,
Any Ideas?

It is possible they received more orders for X3's than they had on hand, so they just pulled some X4's, locked the 4th fully functional core, and shipped em out.

 

[richierich1212]

Nice, glad to hear you are happy with your upgrade.

 

[Yukmouth]

I did the same as you dalewb. I had an athlon XP 2500+ @ 2.23ghz, a Radeon 9700pro and DDR 3200 before I setup the rig below. MSI 770-C45 rocks, though the FSB limit is lame @ 240.

I'm not a fan of the X3 after reading what people can do with the X4's. I'm pretty sure the X3's are more so faulty fourth core chips than anything else, as almost all X3's need more voltage to reach the 3.8 to 4ghz range than the X4's.

I never did get my fourth core unlocked but I thought three cores would suffice. Now I want four, but I'll have to wait as I can't justify the replacement based on how well this computer runs everything I throw at it.

 

[soccerballtux]

X3->X4 user here as well, @ 3.5Ghz. Love it.

 

[Rhoxed]

i have been using my x3 as an x4 overclocked to 3.75 1.45V and 2.6Ghz NB for 24/7 use and have never had the chip hiccup (any bsod's were user error too much oc etc.)

there might be a defect, but after running over 300 programs (games, apps, benchs, stress tests) over the course of 6 months without any noticeable errors, i would say the defect is closer to something you would see on B2 phenoms (9x00) with the errata bug. Something 98% of users would never come across on day to day use.

then again, there is always the off chance they needed to disable perfectly good quad cores to keep up with demand for the chip. (but i doubt their process would have this little amount of error)

 

[Plimogz]

Originally posted by: Rhoxed
there might be a defect, but after running over 300 programs (games, apps, benchs, stress tests) over the course of 6 months without any noticeable errors, i would say the defect is closer to something you would see on B2 phenoms (9x00) with the errata bug. Something 98% of users would never come across on day to day use.

I've been thinking along those very lines for the last day or so... I've been fooling around with my X3-->X4 all day now, and it really is looking pretty good: 3.4GHz w/1.35v seems stable enough and I just bumped it up to 1.4v to see how far that'll go. This still doesn't prove there isn't some slight defect lurking in there somewhere, but anyhow. if it can fold reliably on all 4 cores @3.6GHz w/ 2400Mhz on the IMC I'll be positively giddy.

BTW Rhoxed, what volts are you using on your unlocked X3 for 3.925??

 

[machineheadg2rr]

Originally posted by: manimal
I unlocked the extra cache on two of the four X4 805s I purchased for 79 each at frys two days ago, 79 bucks for 6mb l3 cache goodness is awesome. After testing each I am now trying to overclock one and its testing out at 3.4ish @ 1.4V. Bang for the buck goodness!

nice! how did you get it unlocked?

 

[deimos3428]

Originally posted by: PlimogzThis still doesn't prove there isn't some slight defect lurking in there somewhere

Well to be fair, there's no proof the X4's don't have an obscure bug in them, either...

It would appear to be the case that those X3's which unlock and pass stress-testing work fine thereafter. People have used them for months without incident.