Rather than throwing these defective Quad cores out, AMD decided to repackage these chips as Dual cores or Tri core processors or disable the cache and call them Athlon II. In the case of the Phenom II Quad cores, these parts may have defective cores or cache. There are always parts which don’t make the quality cut. Like all manufacturing processes, chip fabrication is no different. AMD’s “True Quad Core” was a large marketing effort by them to combat Intel’s approach which was to put 2 Dual Core dies together on one chip and bridge them together to make a Quad Core CPU. Or their was more market demand for lesser variants of the same design. The current K10.5 design is an evolution of the older AMD Phenom Design (K10) which had 1 piece of silicon being made producing 4 Cores on this one die, and then disabling or lazer cutting (which has been done by GPU’s in the past) to make lower end chips because 1 or more of the cores did not function properly. However, the aim of this guide is to help everyone increase their chances of successful unlocks. Remember, core unlocking is NOT GUARANTEED. I have written this guide to consolidate the information surrounding core unlocking, and to answer any questions you guys might have. The possibility of spending a mere $100 dollars for a Phenom II X2/X3 chip and unlocking the disabled cores to yield a $200 dollar X4 chip is exactly like the goal of every overclocker around – spend the least amount of money possible and get the most bang for your buck.

*K10.5 includes Athlon II, Phenom II, & Sempron II CPU’sĬore unlocking of AMD chips has been a very hot topic of discussion.

Amd k10 motherboard