Curse

cebalrai · Aug 17, 2010, 11:49 PM // 23:49

i broke down and bought a HD 5770. Then I realized it has a 450W PSU requirement and I have a 460W PSU. I'm cutting it close... Wonder if it will work.

Incidentally I got the 4th core to unlock and pass prime 95 stress testing. So my Athlon II X3 is an X4 now.

Strangely though it reads as a Phenom II X4 in CPU-Z

Quaker · Aug 18, 2010, 02:10 PM // 14:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by cebalrai

I realized it has a 450W PSU requirement and I have a 460W PSU.

The stated power requirements are usually on the high side, and leave a lot of leeway for the quality of the power supply. Think of the PSU requirement as an "average", not a "minimum".

Quote:

Incidentally I got the 4th core to unlock and pass prime 95 stress testing. So my Athlon II X3 is an X4 now.

Just remember that you did that, if/when your system acts up.

Chrisworld · Aug 25, 2010, 03:03 AM // 03:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by cebalrai

i broke down and bought a HD 5770. Then I realized it has a 450W PSU requirement and I have a 460W PSU. I'm cutting it close... Wonder if it will work.

Incidentally I got the 4th core to unlock and pass prime 95 stress testing. So my Athlon II X3 is an X4 now.

Strangely though it reads as a Phenom II X4 in CPU-Z

So any Tri Core CPU is really a Quad Core? Interesting. I'm not even going to attempt to see if the Phenom X3 has 4 cores, don't want to blow anything up lol.

Quaker · Aug 25, 2010, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrisworld

So any Tri Core CPU is really a Quad Core?

Yes, the CPUs are made as quad cores. During testing, some of the chips may have only 1 or 2 cores which fail, while the other cores work fine. If one core is bad they will sell the CPU as a Tri-core.
Unlocking the extra core is always an iffy situation. You can't know in advance why the 4th core was disabled. It may be something minor that doesn't affect much or it could be something major that causes a complete crash. It could also be something relatively important that only causes problems when certain functions are accessed in the core. There could even be situations where there is nothing wrong with the 4th core.
It's basically a crap shoot. The biggest concern for me would be the possibility of obscure errors that only show up on occasion. Then you get people posting on here wanting to know why GW occasionally locks up, for example.
Or you get calculation errors as a result of problems in the 4th core, which you may not even notice, so you think you can afford that Porsche, when actually you can't.

If you want 4 cores, buy 4 cores.