Question Old AM3 core unlocking boards?

[juliandrousseau]

So, a buddy of mine gave me a bunch of old pc parts he had taking up space in his garage. After going though everything I found out that one of the mobos in a box littered with old green pcb mobos had an older AMD cpu in it. A google search of the part number turned up a part name (Phenom II x2 550 B.E.) upon reading more about this chip I found out that this could possibly have 2 cores that have been untouched for god knows how long of this processors life. The mobo it's seated in, as it turns out, is an old Dell OEM board. Needless to say it doesn't support core unlocking nor overclocking. Is it even possible, and if so how do I go about, finding an old AM3 core unlocking micro-atx board and yes I would really like it to be a micro-atx as I already have this system put back in a case and have it running. I would really like to keep this set up and just replace the board. I've already checked for compatible board part numbers and done some searching and cannot find anything on any of them, other than listings on Newegg that are out of stock. I've even checked Aliexpress to no avail. Am I asking too much? What are my chances of finding a board like this on the cusp 2020? Please HELP!!!!!

 

[Starcruiser]

Old but still applies here:
https://www.overclock.net/forum/10-amd-cpus/535501-amd-k10-5-core-cache-unlocking-guide.html

The good news? If you get an AM3+ motherboard it is backwards compatible all the way back to AM2+.
The bad news? AM3+ is a dead platform, so you'll be hard pressed to find anything good that's new. Used is widely available as people upgrade and sell the old ones.
Good Asus boards typically have the core unlock feature, but a quick google of any board model followed by "core unlock" will tell you if the board supports it.

 

[juliandrousseau]

Old but still applies here:
https://www.overclock.net/forum/10-amd-cpus/535501-amd-k10-5-core-cache-unlocking-guide.html

The good news? If you get an AM3+ motherboard it is backwards compatible all the way back to AM2+.
The bad news? AM3+ is a dead platform, so you'll be hard pressed to find anything good that's new. Used is widely available as people upgrade and sell the old ones.
Good Asus boards typically have the core unlock feature, but a quick google of any board model followed by "core unlock" will tell you if the board supports it.

Thanks!

 

[drea.drechsler]

Thanks!

Something you may have not have read but unlocking cores was always a very 'iffy' proposition. Especially with later Phenom II's there just weren't many BE processors with unlockable cores. Either that, or when you DID unlock them you quickly find there were very good reasons why AMD locked the cores out and sold it in a lesser SKU in the first place as it had very bad stability even if not overclocked.

The point is: you might go through this big-time search only to find your processor just won't accomodate.

 

[juliandrousseau]

UPDATE: Got an ASUS m5a78l-m/usb3 board off of ebay....everything works pretty gravy...the only time the unlock or the OC is a little unstable is when i try to OC the ram past 1600mhz....but other than that i got a gt 710 1g in this machine running linux and i'm pulling a smooth 100+ fps in CS:Source at 720p 60hz....im happy with my little experiment and plan on keeping this as a purely linux build to play with

 

[Vic 40]

The disabled cores might really (or at least one of them) have problems with stability so why they used this chip as dualcore. Means why overclocks can be unstable. Just saying. Still nice to see it working.