Reports on unlocking the 710 have been all over the place. Some saying they did it without any trouble, others saying it just does not work, others saying it works, but produced instability in their operation.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but some will buy an extra chip at that low price just to play with it, and I think that's the idea. I would not advise anyone do it felling confident about the results, but if you have room for an extra CPU as a play thing than why not? If it works your getting the equivalent of the AMD X4 920 with an unlocked multiplier for less than half the price. If not, its still a fairly decent dual core chip, especially at the low price.
My curiosity lies in the strategy? Intentional, a happy accident perhaps? Fun to speculate, but perhaps this is one of those moves to get people buzzing? Remember the ole pencil trick on the XP's way back in the day? It got AMD allot of extra press on the net, this may do the same.
It reminds me of many hours spent hunkered over an Athlon XP-M with tape, white out, and a silver pen. This kind of homebrew hardware hackery makes my geek heart swell with pride.
Shoot Thrax, I just used the pencil trick for unlocking my cpu. Can't remember if it was on a Duron or an Athlon. I had a mobile cpu once too.
I wonder if one core is bad if you could turn the dual core into a tricore or is it an all or nothing thing.
All that aside, after reading the update, doesn't look like it would be worth it. Better to go with phenom triple core.
Pencil trick didn't work on Athlon XPs which had a laser-cut bridge which would short the chip if filled. You had to fill the pits with a non-conductive material first.
Seems like AMD is tailoring more towards the hard-core geek crowd which might be a very smart move. Or they're just lazy with their chips. Either way I'm getting a kick out of it. :P
Thrax
🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
Comments
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, but some will buy an extra chip at that low price just to play with it, and I think that's the idea. I would not advise anyone do it felling confident about the results, but if you have room for an extra CPU as a play thing than why not? If it works your getting the equivalent of the AMD X4 920 with an unlocked multiplier for less than half the price. If not, its still a fairly decent dual core chip, especially at the low price.
My curiosity lies in the strategy? Intentional, a happy accident perhaps? Fun to speculate, but perhaps this is one of those moves to get people buzzing? Remember the ole pencil trick on the XP's way back in the day? It got AMD allot of extra press on the net, this may do the same.
AMD, if you did this on purpose. Thank you.
I wonder if one core is bad if you could turn the dual core into a tricore or is it an all or nothing thing.
All that aside, after reading the update, doesn't look like it would be worth it. Better to go with phenom triple core.
Pencil trick didn't work on Athlon XPs which had a laser-cut bridge which would short the chip if filled. You had to fill the pits with a non-conductive material first.
Ahhhh, some good memories.
this FTW!