If you’ve read any of my recent reviews, you know that most of my motherboard testing is on Intel platforms. In fact, the last time I did any testing on AMD was when Phenom II first came out. I tested a few Phenom II CPUs, reviewed a few AM3 motherboards, did a little LN2 overclocking, and went back to playing with Intel stuff. I think the last AMD CPU I tested was Phenom II X3 720 the week it came out, so it’s been a while for me. Around that time, AMD CPUs started to become known not only for their ability to operate at extremely low temperatures, but also for the fact that an extra core could be locked on some of the X3 models, making them into cheap X4 chips. Eventually AMD introduced dual core CPUs that exhibited the same abilities.
But core unlocking was hit or miss. You could buy two seemingly identical processors, and one or both or even neither would unlock. Motherboards were also hit or miss in that specific models were known for core unlocking, but only with specific (often older) BIOS versions, etc. On top of that, if you managed to find a CPU that was able to unlock, there was a decent chance the extra core(s) would be too unstable to use. While you still take your chances with getting a good CPU for unlocking, once you have one, MSI has included a BIOS feature in their new motherboards to make the rest of your core unlocking experience as easy as possible. I believe they have also added the new unlocking feature in new BIOS versions for most of their existing motherboards.
