I am in the midst of building a gaming PC. I was going to just ***** some cash on a 2500K, but realistically i'm not going to use the extra performance playing Team Fortress 2 (or even Crysis, for that matter)... And besides, i'm a bit of an AMD fanboy at heart! So now i fancy buying a Phenom 555BE and unlocking it. What are the chances of successfully unlocking it? I'll not be too disappointed if it doesn't unlock, and anyway i'm keeping half an eye on Bulldozer anyway, so i'll probably buy something more substantial in the long run. Any input appreciated!
unlocked my old 550 to 4 core and managed to overclock it to 4.2 stable. but it did require lots of volts. for every day ran it at 3.8 with 1.5v. dont be afraid to wang the voltages up on these chips they love it. so far ive personally had a 75% rate on unlocking these and ive done a few as it was once my favourite little chip
I got an 550BE and it unlocked without a problem. As jizwizard sad overclocking is a lil harder on them but its well worth it. Before I bought mine I read a lot online and it seems like 1/10 chance of getting one that doesnt unlock and with half of them you get at least one core for free
The last two Phenom x2s I bought both unlocked to B50 and B55 x4s. The feeling is that there are so few bad x4s with silicon faults made that good x4s are being used to keep the x2 line going.
The last time I checked this (back when I actually bought my 555BE so ~ 4 months now) the estimated successful unlock rate was around 75% although I think this bundled together Tri Core and Quad core unlocks as one number. My 555BE unlocked straight out of the box to a Tri core. It will post as a quad but fails as the Windows flag loads on startup. I am not that bothered though as the difference between a Tri core and a quad core Phenom II at the same clocks is relatively minimal. Given that prices have shifted quite alot between when I built my current PC and today I would suggest spending the small amount extra on a Phenom X4 955BE. When I bought my PC the price difference was around £45 but now it is more like £20. For £20 I wouldn't bother with the 555BE anymore and go straight for the 955BE. EDIT: I am not familliar with the motherboard you have, does it even have the option to unlock? Generally it required the 750/850 SB with ACC although I am aware that some 710/810 models also had the ability to unlock.
Good point xaser04. The board in the op sig is an NVidia 6100 and does not support core unlocking. There are cheap AMD760/710 matx boards that do though.
I got 1 core. I'd echo Xaser though to be honest. For £20 more I'd have jumped to the 955, When I bought mine though it was more like £40 difference. I prefer AMD too so I know what you mean, I can't explain why though as I know Intel perform better. Just make sure you ditch the POS cooling that ships with it especially if you attempt unlocking and overclocking
Thanks for the input, everyone. On the first point, simply buying the 955BE is an option that i've concidered. I may well end up doing this. However, if i can get the same performance for 20ish quid less, then why not? On the second point, the motherboard in my sig is staying in my old machine. My new motherboard will probably be an MSI 870A-G54 or similar. And yeah, i'll be getting some aftermarket cooling. Edit: xaser04 - having read your sig, i'm pretty much building your computer again! Fractal R3, AMD B55, MSI 870A-G54, Crucial M4 64gb (boot), 2TB HDD, etc. Is there anything about your machine that you'd change if you built it again? Also, which cooling fans do you have in your case, and how does it perform?
If I was rebuild my machine right now I would obviously look at Sandybridge but overall I am very pleased with what a relatively modest budget got me. In its current state there isn't really anything I would change bar the cpu cooler. I managed to pick up a Phenom X6 cooler for £2 which ,whilst not fantastic, is much better than the stock 555BE cooler. I have thought long and hard about changing over to a aftermarket cooler, but TBH I have no issues with the current cooler so it would be a waste of money right now. Performance is generally excellent especially from a connectivity point of view. The MSI 870a-G54 has USB3.0 and SATA 6GB/s (all ports) right off the bat so it is brilliant for high end SSD's. Core unlocking and overclocking in the bios is well layed out, although fan control is a bit lacking. MSI core centre can solve this problem though. In terms of cooling I am running the stock R3 fan configuration (single 120mm intake and exhaust), I havn't noticed any temperature related issues at all. My HD6950 nudges 80 degrees and then plateaus whilst my cpu doesn't seem to be bothered. I should point out that unlocking the 555BE will break the ability to directly monitor the core temperatures (something to do with the probe not seeing the unlocked cores). There is away to monitor the temperatures by using the closest motherboard sensor (CPU socket normally), but you must remember to add ~5 degrees to get a reasonably accurate core reading. Overall I am very pleased with the build. Factoring in the HD6950 and 120GB SSD it has cost me around £650. At the time of purchase a SB system would have been around £200-250 more which simply wasn't do-able. I am currently in the process of doing a mammoth benchmarking "review" comparing my old GTX460 (overclocked to 900/1800/4300) against my new HD6950 (unlocked) although I have hit a couple of snags: BFBC2 doesn't work properly thanks to the punkbuster issue, and Crysis Warhead only pushes my HD6950 to ~75% load (no doubt a cpu bottleneck) meaning I am only seeing a modest improvement over my 460. Plans for the furture are either an upgrade to Bulldozer (thanks to MSI's confirming the 870a-G54 will support it with a bios update) or a switch over to a Z68 system to utilise the SSD caching / AVX feature.
The 955BE is more like getting a 965 or 970 for less as it will OC to those clocks without effort, and you don't take a gamble or have to bother with unlocking anything. I'd say just go for the quad out the box and OC the crap out of it.
xaser04 - Thanks for the info, buddy! OCJunkie - Thanks for the input. I may well end up buying a 955 BE and seeing how i get on. As i said before, i am keeping half an eye on Bulldozer anyway, so i may end up upgrading to that if it's worth the outlay.
