990 Motherboards that can unlock cores on AM3 processors?

[wnnbgwrrr]

Yesterday I picked up a Zosma processor from newegg, but I have yet to purchase a motherboard. My thinking was that a AM3+ motherboard with a 990 chipset would be nice, so that in the event that AMD does release a really nice AM3+ processor I would be able to upgrade. So my question is, at this point in time are there any 990 motherboards that can unlock AM3 processors? If not, what are people's recommendation for a motherboard.

Edit: Let me clarify by saying that I am not necessarily stuck on the idea of unlocking the processor that I purchased. I am just saying that in an ideal world I would both have a motherboard that gives me the potential to unlock the processor I have now, and have the latest chipset available for maximum upgrade potential down the road. But if there is not a board that will do that I am open to going one way or the other on this.

 

[RGone]

990FX Extreme4 UNlocks hidden core on Phenom2 cpus that have working but "hidden" cores.

There ARE others but you will have to dig around. ASUS still has some Phenom2 core unlocking on 990 chipset, but has dropped advertising such...likely at AMD request.

 

[wnnbgwrrr]

Thanks for your reply RGone. I have been searching around some more and I did find this report of someone unlocking a 960T with a Sabertooth 990FX. But I bought the 960T because I thought at $115 it was a good value. If I spend a lot of money on the motherboard then I am left asking myself why did I buy the 960T when I could of spent ~$50 more and got a real Thuban. Right now I am leaning towards the BIOSTAR TA990FXE if I am going to forgot all this unlocking business. Or the ASRock 990FX Extreme3 if I am going to test my luck.

It has been hard to get clear information on which 990 boards have unlocking features and which do not. So if anyone else has any information that they think I would find useful I would appreciate it.

 

[RGone]

get clear information on which 990 boards have unlocking features and which do not = I hear that man. Asus and Gigabyte had the best unlockers on the 890 chipsets since after the 790 type chipset...AMD removed support for unlocking. Asus actually had a dedicated chip to decode the hidden cores and enable them. I think that Asus still supports most of the older core unlocking like it did on the 890 boards but they removed the advertising of such.

I looked for a few hours at the 960T last night myself and found it out of stock at the 'better' prices. But during my looking I decided on an 890chipset board so I could get the 'better' grade of board since the BD cpu seems slow and it is said that PileDriver is going to likely use the FM2 socket and I would not use first BD cpu anyway.

Good luck man. RGone...ster.

 

[wnnbgwrrr]

Good luck man. RGone...ster.

Thanks.

This seems like a possibility ASUS M5A97 its cheaper then any of the 990FX boards and it according to this it has core unlocking features.

 

[RGone]

It is supposed to core unlock the Phenom 2 type processor.

 

[ssjwizard]

I have a gigabyte 990xa-ud3 and it can core unlock am3 processors.

 

[storm-chaser]

See your other post but I'd recommend the Biostar T series, TA880GU3. Only an 880 chipset, but I unlocked my 970T with it, as well as pushed the NB to 3122 on air.

 

[Bobnova]

I'm in the process of reviewing a 990fxa-ud5 from gigabyte, it has a bios switch labeled "core unlocking" enabled/disabled.
I don't have a locked CPU to test it with though.

 

[Woomack]

I'm in the process of reviewing a 990fxa-ud5 from gigabyte, it has a bios switch labeled "core unlocking" enabled/disabled.
I don't have a locked CPU to test it with though.

My UD5 couldn't unlock Phenom II X2. I mean like I saw 4 cores but any 100% load test and I had freeze in like 5 seconds. No matter which core was unlocked.
I was planning to make review of this board some time ago but I see no point with current issues. Probably there will be rev 1.1 soon.

 

[Bobnova]

Mine misreads my CPU's VID half the time, and gives it 0.15 too many volts all the time on AUTO. Not real pleased with it, gigabyte may not be real pleased with me when I post my review.
Turns out I had a bad connection in the socket, not gigabyte's fault, just dust with really annoying accuracy.

 

[wnnbgwrrr]

It appears that all or most of the Gigabyte 990 boards have unlocking features in the bios. But I have also seen a lot of reports on various forums where people report being unable to unlock cores on processors that they were previously running unlocked in other boards after switching to one of the Gigabyte 990 boards. So that doesn't inspire confidence.

 

[KrazyGimp]

Hey guys,

I'm new around here and just wanted to share my experience so far. I bought a 960t and an Asus M5A99X Evo motherboard last week. They finally showed up so I have been messing around with overclocking and trying to unlock the cores.

The M5A99X does have the core unlock feature in the bios. However it does not appear to be able to unlock the 960t. It only sees 4 cores. After saving and restarting I get a message saying the current CPU does not support the core unlock feature.

 

[wnnbgwrrr]

So I finally settled on a ASUS M5A99X EVO and I wanted to report that I was able to unlock the two additional cores of the 960T with this motherboard.

 

[Woomack]

Last weekend I was playing Sempron 145 and it was running fine unlocked to 2 cores on both Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 and Asus CHV. I doubt that anyone think to get cheapest cpu with most expensive boards but that's just as an info
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=2187747