phenom 550 or 555

Is it worth the extra cash
btw my motherboard should unlock the cpu if i get the right stepping

The difference between the two is only 100mhz which you can easily make up with a slight OC.

The 560 and 565 out too. The extra £10/20 are not worth it.

What are you upgrading from? Newer bioses allow you to selectively unlock one core so you should end up with a tri.

i was unable to unlock my i have the 550be

tried in 2 different motherboard.. ibut many have be able to...?

at the minute i have a gigabyte
m720-us3 which apparently can unlock cores
its not a very good overclocking currently have a athlon 240 2.8ghz but only can manage 3.4.
?
have a 5770 on order so i want a decent cpu so it does not bottle neck it

think i will go with the 550, do you know which steppings to buy? any info? are they still unlockable

I don't think your 240 will bottlenech your system with a 5770.

They should be unlockable. The new 550 are not BE iirc and you really want a c3 chip (if they made the 550 on C3). The stock cooler wil be the same as your 240 and not really good enough for a quad phenom.

Whats limiting your OC? 3.4 is not bad at all.

well the athlon 240 usually gets around 3.6 - 3.8 typically i know not all cpus are capable but a better motherboard , cooling is better

well i used to have a 550 long time ago and it did unlock and was a BE but sold it,
and bought an xbox 360 instead,

but i missed the use of the pc and now wanted to start back up
and do miss that cpu