How powerful is this computer for gaming?

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PSU (19A on a 450W is bad) before a new Video Card.
Get windows whenever, unless you can't play your games in Linux then get it ASAP.

There is an option on your motherboards BIOS to unlock hidden cores.
The X3 is an X4 CPU with a locked core.
 
What do you mean unlock to a quad? is there some magical way of transforming a tri-core to a quad-core, or do you mean I should upgrade to a quad?

Unlocking to a Quad is hit or miss on certain processors. Trotter is talking about changing a BIOS setting to potentially enable a "hidden" core. Sometimes the market calls for more tri cores, so AMD disables a core in a quad and sells it for the price of a tri core, sometimes the core is disabled because the processor was meant to be a quad, but one core failed whatever tests that AMD does for stability.
It can vary from BIOS to BIOS and motherboard to motherboard, but I think that a common way of enabling them is to enable ACC and use a relatively high value of it. Sometimes you can unlock cache as well.

Edit: Ninjad by Roark.
 
^ Exactly. I know my board actually tells you to hit a specific key on the splash screen to open up the core unlocker.

My wife's CPU was an Athlon II x3 445 that unlocked into a Phenom II x4 B45. My daughter's CPU was a Phenom II x2 555 that unlocked into a quad as well.
 
If I tried to unlock it to a quad, what's the worst thing that could happen? Is it as simple as going into the bios and changing some stuff? My current processor is a 2.7GHz single core, which is very slow, so any computer with more then one core will satisfy me for the time being lol. But I might look into unlocking it later, once it' s built.

Why do they lock cores? is it because the fourth one is unstable or something?
 
If the core is unstable and you enable it it could cause damage to the CPU itself and/or the motherboard, but that is rare.
Usually if you enable an unstable core, your system will crash and be unstable (BSOD).
If you enable the core and it isn't unstable, then you now have a core that you didn't pay for.

They lock cores for the reasons mentioned above.
 
So they disable the core so it sells more, because more people buy tri-cores than quad-cores? that's interesting. By the way, how long does it usually take to put a barebone kit together? not including OS installation. My friend is coming over today to help me put it together, I'm curious how long it will take.
 
They disable it so they can sell it. If they manufacture a 4-core CPU with one or two unstable cores, instead of throwing it out they just lock the cores and sell it as a 2 or 3 core.
While they don't meet manufacturing specs, most people can unlock and have no problems with them.

Depends on how much effort you put in to making it pretty, and how many times you have to go back and re-do something you messed up or missed.
I'd say average 2 hours, unless you just slap everything in there with no regard to cable management, then probably less.
 
I'm not sure what you mean, so here's a scan I took. It's a large image, but I figured the quality is better than it would be if I just took a picture.

Might as well help make you smarter..

A psu is rated in Watts and Amps on the +12V. With yours, you see it's 450W, and on the 12V its 19Amps. Which is horrible if you plan to run a bigger/better gpu.
 
Might as well help make you smarter..

A psu is rated in Watts and Amps on the +12V. With yours, you see it's 450W, and on the 12V its 19Amps. Which is horrible if you plan to run a bigger/better gpu.
Are there any requirements for buying a new PSU, or could I just buy any PSU and it'll fit in my case? I'm not sure how to look for a new PSU, since I don't know how to measure what is good and what is bad, aside from assuming that expensive = good and cheap = not good. What would be an example of a good PSU?
 
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