Picked up another 550 dualcore cpu today and again it unlocked to Phenom II quad.
To do this you need a AM2+/AM3 mobo with a 750 south bridge, I used the Biostar TA790GX 128 which is well known on the internet as an unlocking motherboard since this tric was discovered in the x3 720's.

Here is a shot in cpu-z of my current running speed:

Didn't I mention unlocking these a while ago? Or did I drop that post.. hmm.. I do that too often when i'm busy..

Yeah the 2x2's are a great cpu to unlock. Definitely what I would consider to be by far the best bang for the buck budget processor!

I'm so wanting to make my next build a Phenom 2. but at the same time I have been greatly disappointed with AMD for such a long time I don't know if I can change.

I do hope soon enough the 975 extreme i7 drops. Or maybe Ski will sell his off

I suppose i'll see in time. But i'll have to wait most likely till after November.

essientially you are getting amd's flagship chip for $130 bucks, how can you go wrong?

Oh I know. It's by far the sweetest deal.

Actually you run superpi, 3dmark, pcmark, etc yet with the cpu and overclock?`

just prime tested it at 3.7ghz overnight. i will bench it once i have everything the way i like it.

Hurry up slacker

hopefully today or tomorrow...

I heard numerous times that these Phenom II's and Athlon II's dual cores are only dual core because of a manufacturing defect in the die, so they disable to bad cores and you get a dual.

If that's the case, I wouldn't trust opening up that other core.

the 3 i have are perfect on all cores (24 hour orthos tested at 3.7 ghz, with the cherry one running 4ghz), i think its just easier fto have one production line and diable the cores on some for dualcores. plus i think this is partially intentional on amd's part to stick it to intel. cause seriously if they wanted to make it impossible to enable the other cores they easily could.