A cheap AMD Athlon II X2 210e appears! Adnoctum uses SB710 ACC with BIOS 0308. It doesn't effect X2 210e. Adnoctum uses SB710 ACC with BIOS 1001. It is super effective. 210e evolves into AMD Phenom II X4 910e!! 210e - X2, 2.6GHz, 45w, AM3, Regor-core. 910e - X4, 2.6GHz, 65w, AM3, Deneb-core.
Asus M4A785D-M Pro (785G/SB710). I bought it second hand, but I had a look at Newegg and it is $44 new. Nice for a potential quad core lottery. Odd. I have just been looking at CPUID and there isn't any L3 cache, so how can it be an unlocked Deneb core? Can you unlock cores but not L3? Or is it a Propus core? But CPUID does state it is a 910e and Deneb.
Has Adnoctum tested it for stability? In theory no; it will need the L3 to be a full Deneb. No L3 means its a AthlonII x4, a propus like you said.
There have been Athlon II's that have had their L3 cache unlocked showing they have Phenom II cores. As we have seen, unlocking isn't guaranteed even if the cores/cache are physically there. So what I was asking, could it be that this IS a Deneb core, one that the cores can unlock but not the L3? However, the stepping is CADAC, which research tells me is a Propus core. So it is more like an Athlon II X4 620, but 65w instead of 95w. Bit odd that CPUID 1.56 identifies it as a Deneb X4 910e (Family:10, Model:5, Stepping:2), but it isn't infallible. I don't care about the L3, this was for a media box upgrade anyway replacing a K8 X2. I haven't done any stability testing, and that will have to wait until the weekend. I'll put it under some pressure and report back. Tt has booted multiple times into Windows, has been stable for up to 30mins or so that the system has been on (not long I know) and ran Dr Divx for 10mins. All without artefacts, errors and crashes.
You can google it, but it seems that in many cases an initial run of Athlon II's are a mix of de-L3 Phenom II and Athlon II, and only the stepping can reveal the actual core used.
Find a retail Deneb with no L3 cache and I think you have your answer. Sounds reasonably stable tbh. Keep an eye on temps if you're stuck with a stock cooler. If one of the cores is faulty you shoul dbe able to lock it again in the bios.
Original CPUZ screenshot. After unlocking the cores. I should point out that I forgot to turn off Cool and Quiet, so the cores have clocked down at idle. I've been running Prime95 on all four cores for just over two hours now. Nothing untoward. I think I'll disable the other two cores for now as lately I've been more playing back video and haven't been doing much encoding/transcoding.
link Check out whats written on the chip; my money is on propus and GPUz not being updated as this chip has been around for a month. Bit disappointing to see its C2 if it is that recent; could be another CPU-Z problem as I would have thought they are all on C3 now.
Regarding the cache tab, that is why I posed my question regarding unlocking cores but not L3. I found it odd. CPUZ can only extrapolate CPU identification from the CPUID string, so it is the same error that the motherboard BIOS is making because it identifies it as a 910e too. CPUZ gets other things wrong. The board is a 785G/SB710. 1.52 says my motherboard is 785GP/SB750. First, I don't think there is a 785GP chipset, and it isn't SB750. 1.56 says my motherboard is 785G/SB700. SB700 doesn't have ACC, so unlocking would be quite a trick! So I take CPUZ with a bit of scepticism. And apparently ACC unlocking can do screwy things (such as temperature sensor reporting) so you have to expect some oddities. The stepping is CADAC, which is definitely Propus and not Deneb. For info sake, it is dated week 33, 2010. - AD210EHDK22GI CADAC HD 1033BPMW Regarding C2 vs C3 revision, it is a low voltage core so it is possible that AMD has been binning and saving these up until they had enough for release. As I said, I'm not really bothered as it does what is promised plus a bit more. I just like fiddling with my hardware (no pun intended). New toys are fun, and I'm always buying new toys. *Sigh* There's a 9800GT in the mail and I'm going to see if I can mix-n-match with my HD4870 for Physx. Just for the giggles.
Update: June 2012. The Athlon II 210e was solid unlocked to X4, but it is now moving to a mITX system I'm building as a low-power gaming system for older games (DX9 and older - I'm sick of sucking down the juice playing Deus Ex and I'm looking to passively cool everything with a front 140mm fan). Replacement is a cheap second-hand (yeah, I'm tight in that way) Phenom II X2 555 (Callisto C3 core @ 3.2GHz). Good news! It unlocked to a Phenom II X4 "B55" (Deneb C3 core @ 3.2GHz). Motherboard is the same M4A785D-M Pro (785G/SB710) above. So far it has been solid - no crashes and no artifacts, but I'm keeping an eye on it. Should also note that while I had the ACC equipped motherboard available I popped in a Phenom II X3 720 (Heka C2 core @ 2.8GHz) that I had in my grubby paws to see if it could unlock the fourth core. It did, and identified itself as a Phenom II X4 "20", but it was a bit of an odd fish. There was a couple of crashes, and yet it would also stress-test quite stably over several hours. It is possible that the hacked around XP installation was to blame. Perhaps a slight voltage bump would have helped, but I couldn't be bothered idly spending the time with the system in bits just to satisfy my curiosity.
I thought anyone looking for info on Athlon II/Phenom II unlocking, or the Athlon II 210e/Phenom II 910e in particular, would appreciate an update as there were questions regarding stability/reliability. It is now being retired as a quad core for a well earned retirement to good old gaming. No answers regarding the odd CPUID results, but it didn't affect use so...meh.