From reading around (a dangerous thing I know), it seems that the Athlon 5000+ based Phenom FX5000 will not support DDR3 so using a motherboard with DDR2 support seems to be a must! Although hopefully I will be corrected if this is wrong!
From reading around (a dangerous thing I know), it seems that the Athlon 5000+ based Phenom FX5000 will not support DDR3 so using a motherboard with DDR2 support seems to be a must! Although hopefully I will be corrected if this is wrong!
What sort of overclocks are people getting with the unlocked cores?? I want to get one for a gaming build im doing for a friend.
The X2 5000+ is an AM2+ processor, which means it won't fit in an AM3 socket. There are very few AM2 motherboards with DDR3 memory support (as no older AM2 processors use DDR3) so it's kind of a moot question as to whether the CPU can support it - my suspicion would be that, as the core is a full fat Phenom II, it would include the hybrid memory controller that allows DDR3: although as I say it'd be finding a board to test it on that would be the problem...
chris_argyle (12-07-2010)
I think they are related to the 940's which iirc only have a ddr2 controller onboard.
chris_argyle (12-07-2010)
I guess there is a way for AMD to fuse off the DDR3 support if it really doesn't work (I don't have a DDR3 motherboard to try it on).
Nearly all the Phenom II CPUs on the market seem to be C2 stepping, but the 65W TDP implies to me these are quite a recent batch.
I'd always assumed that the silicon for the 940 & 945 were identical and they just stuck the dies on different packages - so if you made a mobo with an AM2+ socket but DDR3 DIMM slots a 940 would run the DDR3 OK (the 940 was released before Socket AM3 came to market, iirc - hence the AM2+ package). It would seem an economically poor decision to make different silicon for two otherwise identical processors...
Given that AM3 has less pins the actual pin-to-memory mapping must use the same pins (iirc DDR2 and DDR3 use the same number of pins/dimm?) and presumably the magic all happens within the controller. Whether it's then viable, or even possible, to fuse off bits of the controller and disable support for one type of memory is some way beyond my technical knowledge, sad to say...
You are correct that the silicon is identical (I remember seeing a quote from AMD to that effect in a recent web surf), but I haven't seen any details of how the chip knows which memory it is allowed to use.
It could be that if you snip the extra 2 pins off the 5000+ it would work OK in an AM3 board with DDR3 memory, or perhaps it would knacker it I have no idea as I have never found a pinout for these modern chips
It looks like AMD put a lot of effort into the AM2+/AM3 transition, so I expect there were plenty of packaging options allowed for in the design.
On another thought, the 5000+ in my son's PC is up to a gentle 2.6GHz but still on the original cooler so not going to risk going higher yet. Anyone had any monster overclocks despite the tiny multiplier?
Mine should arrive today, along with the ASRock board mentioned earlier in the thread.
The board is AM2+ but has both DDR2 and DDR3 slots, so I can test it for you if anyone is interested (as I have DDR2 and DDR3 to hand). Assuming my CPU is actually the downranked Phenom that is, it was listed as 45nm and 65W, but you never know what will arrive!
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...68C-S-UCC.html
Is the board - for anyone interested (also dirt cheap, another reason why I got it )
DanceswithUnix (13-07-2010),scaryjim (13-07-2010)
I'm pretty sure when they first came out one hexusite got their fully unlocked and up to 3.0GHz, though I don't know if it was fully stable at that... I'd do a forum search but my search-fu is pretty appalling...
Yeah - see what happens and let us know back in this thread - I'd love to know
Looking at the Asrock CPU support list, looks like that board is rated at 95W so don't try any big overclocks once you unlock it!
OK everything did indeed arrive, and everything has been put together nicely.
I checked the part numbers etc on the heatspreader, and it came up as
http://www.cpu-world.com/step_codes/C/CACVC%20AC.html
Which was the right part at least as far as I could tell.
OK boot first time, into BIOS, enable ASrock UCC ... and - we still have two cores.
OK next step Bios update (which at least was easy with Easyflash) ... renable UCC ... and - we still have two cores.
Im very dissapointed. Of course I know there are no guarantees and I shouldnt expect something for nothing, but I wouldnt have bought the chip except for its - shall we say - potential. I may try rolling back the BIOS to an intermediate version, but other than that I guess its game over. Kicking myself for wasted money really, as I wanted more than 2 cores for the folding machine and so now I'm pretty stuffed with this extra chip. Plus the fact I did quite a nice assembly with regards to the wiring etc which will now need to come apart
I suppose also there is no point testing DDR3 unless it thinks its a Phenom. If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears. I do have a 690G board upstairs, so may see if that has any unlocking options.
Sorry to hear that yours didn't working, guess i was lucky as I got mine from ebuyer when it had 5 left in stock.
Mine drop back to 2 core Monday night, got it back to 4 core after I disable the UCC then reboot and restarted again this time with ucc enable. Still showing only 2 core so switch off and re enter bios. It was back to 4 core again as bios was showing FX5000 on main screen.
Still don't know why it dropped the cores, could it be the Asrock mobo as it not an AMD chipset.
Almost all unlocking motherboards do use an AMD chipset, but in this case ASrock fitted their own unlocking chip to a Nvidia based chipset.
Have you tried CPUz to see what it describes the chip as?
Sounds like you are very unlucky, unless there is something fishy going on with that chip
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