Help with CPU Upgrade

[Palomino]

My son's first gaming build included an AMD 720 X3 paired with a Radeon 4870 1gb. This was pretty good for a first build and he's run it about 2 years.

He upgraded the GPU a little while ago to a Radeon 6950 2GB.

With the 6950, he can play most games at pretty high settings without a hitch, but still sees some slower frame rates, etc. on others.

He has less than $150 for a processor upgrade and is looking at the AMD phenon II x4 965. Its on sale right now for $140 including tax.

Will the 965 help him that much? He has 4 GB of 1333 Ram.

 

[Trotter]

Yes it will.

 

[95BlackGA]

Have you tried unlocking the 4th core on the 720? Unlocking the 4th core will turn it into a "Phenom II X4 920."

 

[Palomino]

Thanks,

I will give it a try, but I heard this does not work with all 720s.

If it doesn't work, can I get it back to original?

 

[Trotter]

Yes. Unlocking is just a setting in the BIOS. If it doesn't work, or the other core is unstable, just turn it back off in the BIOS.

 

[95BlackGA]

Yes. Unlocking is just a setting in the BIOS. If it doesn't work, or the other core is unstable, just turn it back off in the BIOS.

Yep, comes with trial and error. You do have to have a certain southbridge for this to work though. Do you know the motherboard model? I do believe only 710 and 750 southbridges will unlock cores.

I have a Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition. I was successfully able to unlock the 3rd core, but the fourth causes instability.

 

[Palomino]

Its a GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P

I think I remember reading that it has the capability.

 

[95BlackGA]

Its a GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P

I think I remember reading that it has the capability.

Yep, it does. Do you know the board revision, and which BIOS it has? Some are saying that F2C BIOS does not have the unlocking feature, so a BIOS flash may be needed/

 

[Palomino]

I think we are on the original bios 1.0. I downloaded the F12 version but it keeps saying it won't work on his machine because its not 64 bit. Confusing because he is on Windows 7 64 bit.

 

[Palomino]

BTW, when I looked on the current bios, it only shows three cores.