Phenom II X2 555 unlock probability?

S

Sprtfan

Limp Gawd
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Aug 23, 2007
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All of the reviews I have seen that tried to unlock the Phenom II 555 were able to but I would think that they would cherry pick cpus to send to reviewers. When the 550 were first release wasn't the chance of getting one that would unlock lower than it was when the cpu had been on the market for a while? I was thinking that the same may be true now and wanted to see if anyone would have other information.
 
nah just check the unlock thread in this sub forum.. you will see just how common it is.. and its more likely now that you can get a 550 that unlocks since the majority of newer 550 batches are perfectly working phenom II x4 955's..

woops miss read the title as 550 instead of 555.. but either way the same point stands.. the 555 is just the C3 stepping of the 955BE.. so id expect the probability of unlocking being just as good as the 550.. also if AMD was trying to cherry pick unlockable cpu's it would just be completely bad business practice.. if anything they would cherry pick processors that could NOT be unlocked.. the 550 and 555's are both being sold as a profitable loss since they could make far more money being sold as 955's instead of 550/555's..
 
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From everything I've read the probability of the x2 555 unlocking is even better
 
does anybody know if you need a BIOs revision with these new 555 chips to work on a GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD. Is it also possible to unlock on this since ACC only works on the f2c bios.
 
From what we can tell, the probability of a successful unlock is greater than 50%. It may be as high as 75%. There are two counteractive forces that may skew the data, though:

1) People who had a successful unlock are more likely to report it.
2) People might have a chip capable of unlocking, but somehow screw it up, and think the unlock failed -- an example would be not upping the voltage, or not having the right ram timings, or using the stock cooler (LOL), etc. A lot of the newegg review noobs I suspect are like this.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
nah just check the unlock thread in this sub forum.. you will see just how common it is.. and its more likely now that you can get a 550 that unlocks since the majority of newer 550 batches are perfectly working phenom II x4 955's..

woops miss read the title as 550 instead of 555.. but either way the same point stands.. the 555 is just the C3 stepping of the 955BE.. so id expect the probability of unlocking being just as good as the 550.. also if AMD was trying to cherry pick unlockable cpu's it would just be completely bad business practice.. if anything they would cherry pick processors that could NOT be unlocked.. the 550 and 555's are both being sold as a profitable loss since they could make far more money being sold as 955's instead of 550/555's..
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yeah, but how many of us would pay $150 for a quad core 955 vs a i3/i5?...

i like my 550 BE though :)... $90 from newegg... was at $75 from Frys online a week ago

i would say that the 550 BE manufacturing process has been refined... since they can now have better power management and starting at slightly higher frequency, probably better yields, more functional quad cores per die, but binned down because of market share
 
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paperwastage said:
yeah, but how many of us would pay $150 for a quad core 955 vs a i3/i5?...

i like my 550 BE though :)... $90 from newegg... was at $75 from Frys online a week ago
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plenty of people if they already own an AMD rig.. since its pretty much a drop in upgrade if you already own an am2+ board..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
plenty of people if they already own an AMD rig.. since its pretty much a drop in upgrade if you already own an am2+ board..
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yeah... my point is there are only so many people in that situation... other people (like me, new builds) are looking for complete systems... and if you give me $150 for a processor, i5 650 at $200 looks pretty yummy...

so AMD can only sell those quad cores at a lower price as dual core 550 BEs... sending out non-working-quad 555BEs to reviewers would only shutup AMD fanboys... but sending-out working-quad 555BEs give hope to a lot of us... and sell a lot of mobos with 780/785/790 (since they contain ACC)
 
I paid 169.99 for my 95W X4 945 back in August to upgrade a solid skt 754 3400+ Venice system. I got a new AM3 mobo, DDR3 ram, X4 945 95w Deneb, psu and 2 new 1TB hard drives. So, yeah I would. The price is now down to $150.99 at Newegg for the C3 (mine is C2) stepping chips so its an even better deal. Had I been able to get an Athlon II 630 quad back then it would have been a no brainer for me since I don't do a lot of gaming (legacy stuff - HL, HL2, FEAR) and the system is used more for CAD, audio and some video work. I didn't want to mess around trying to unlock a dual core since it doesn't always work. I just bit the bullet and went with the sure thing.
For gaming, according to Kyle's review, ghz is still what is important but the day is coming when more cores will be the way to go. I'll take 4 cores over 2 right now to be well positioned - but that is just me. And hopefully when the hexacores come out I can drop one right in and keep on truckin'.
 
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^ Yeah. I wouldn't trust an unlocked processor with mission-critical data, unless it was stress tested very thoroughly. Luckily my X3 710 unlocked is rock-solid stable. I don't think that system has EVER crashed.
 
paperwastage said:
yeah... my point is there are only so many people in that situation... other people (like me, new builds) are looking for complete systems... and if you give me $150 for a processor, i5 650 at $200 looks pretty yummy...

so AMD can only sell those quad cores at a lower price as dual core 550 BEs... sending out non-working-quad 555BEs to reviewers would only shutup AMD fanboys... but sending-out working-quad 555BEs give hope to a lot of us... and sell a lot of mobos with 780/785/790 (since they contain ACC)
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processor cost isnt everything though when it comes to a new build.. especially when your doing a full build.. i wont argue the i5's a good price for the performance.. but the difference comes down to whether the person building the system requires the performance the i5 gives and if it really warrants the extra cost.. just to have a system like that and never actually take advantage of the performance it gives..

for the majority of people and i mean the majority.. a 955 is more then enough power.. especially combined with a cheap 70 dollar 770 chipset motherboard.. and since theres 0 difference between the 955 vs the i5/i7 in gaming it just backs up whether the difference in performance and cost matters..
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
processor cost isnt everything though when it comes to a new build.. especially when your doing a full build.. i wont argue the i5's a good price for the performance.. but the difference comes down to whether the person building the system requires the performance the i5 gives and if it really warrants the extra cost.. just to have a system like that and never actually take advantage of the performance it gives..

for the majority of people and i mean the majority.. a 955 is more then enough power.. especially combined with a cheap 70 dollar 770 chipset motherboard.. and since theres 0 difference between the 955 vs the i5/i7 in gaming it just backs up whether the difference in performance and cost matters..
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Exactly. Plus, getting an unlocked 500be is $70 cheaper than the cheapest i5. The cheapest Phenom II X4 is $30 cheaper. Equivalent motherboards for AMD run around $40-60 cheaper, as well. Add all that up, and you've made up the difference between getting a 5770 and 5850 video card. I'd take the AMD/5850 over the Intel/5770 any day.

That's not to say you should never go with Intel; I just think there is logic to the AMD choice.
 
tehspoon said:
does anybody know if you need a BIOs revision with these new 555 chips to work on a GIGABYTE GA-MA770T-UD3P AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD. Is it also possible to unlock on this since ACC only works on the f2c bios.
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I have that board and the acc works with bios f5 and f6a no problem.
 
ordovician said:
Yes, but does it still unlock?
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Yes it does unlock thats what i meant by "works no problem". My 550 be is running 4 cores unlocked @ 3600mhz @ 1.48v prime stable for 6.5 hours so far today using blend test. I am running f6a bios but the f5 worked as well. I don't know where the idea that the new bios wont unlock came from.
 
brandinb said:
Yes it does unlock thats what i meant by "works no problem". My 550 be is running 4 cores unlocked @ 3600mhz @ 1.48v prime stable for 6.5 hours so far today using blend test. I am running f6a bios but the f5 worked as well. I don't know where the idea that the new bios wont unlock came from.
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Cool, I just ordered that board for a friend and wanted to know for sure. Thanks!
 
brandinb said:
Yes it does unlock thats what i meant by "works no problem". My 550 be is running 4 cores unlocked @ 3600mhz @ 1.48v prime stable for 6.5 hours so far today using blend test. I am running f6a bios but the f5 worked as well. I don't know where the idea that the new bios wont unlock came from.
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Ahh it's because i heard that f2c was the only version that included hybrid mode, but i guess not. I also heard that the f5 BIOS yields a higher chance for the 555 to unlock, but who knows until you try rite? I'll let you guys know once i recieve it on friday
 
ordovician said:
Exactly. Plus, getting an unlocked 500be is $70 cheaper than the cheapest i5. The cheapest Phenom II X4 is $30 cheaper. Equivalent motherboards for AMD run around $40-60 cheaper, as well. Add all that up, and you've made up the difference between getting a 5770 and 5850 video card. I'd take the AMD/5850 over the Intel/5770 any day.

That's not to say you should never go with Intel; I just think there is logic to the AMD choice.
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Yup

I went from an e4500 / Intel 965 board back to AMD PII 550BE. I was interested in a little upgrade, but not buying all new RAM (re-using my DDR2). To get 6GB of DDR3 would cost about $120, minimum, minus what I could have sold my DDR2 for on ebay (maybe $60-$70 after fees on ebay).

950BE + board = ($90 + $80) $170
core i3 + board ($125 + $100) = $225 PLUS all new DDR3 (~$50 to upgrade as per math above).

$275 vs $170 ...saved me $100. And the unlocked 550 as a quad is better for some purposes (quads good for Dragon Age, my favorite game right now, for example).
 
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I got mine in today VIA newegg. It unlocked :) . Although I can't figure out why the temps seem to be so high with mini ninja. Even before the unlock I was at 35-45C at stock speeds.

I need to do some stability testing to be sure all is good.
 
newegg CACAC AC 1004BPMW

basically everyone that has bought from newegg has the same stepping. I know i've also seen a EPMW batch but only outside of the US. IMO the unlocking rate for these seems to be 50/50 :/
 
1004CPMW. I bought 3 of these from Microcenter and all 3 unlocked and all overclocked to 3.9 @ 1.475/1.485v depending on the chip. one is on Ebay now. Primed Small FFT 24 hours without fail or errors.
 
GetFunk01 said:
1004CPMW. I bought 3 of these from Microcenter and all 3 unlocked and all overclocked to 3.9 @ 1.475/1.485v depending on the chip. one is on Ebay now. Primed Small FFT 24 hours without fail or errors.
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i hate u..? lol looking at ur ebay auction. hmmm. if mine doesn't....
 
Most of the time is a no go for the 4th. core on 790FX board.

Heres with Crosshair III and cpu from Neweeg. Cooling with single stage @-9C

screenshot574.jpg


Tricores are fun too:)

screenshot580.jpg
 
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I got two of them, neither will unlock. One of my friends also has one that will not unlock. My other friend has one that does, and is a stable 3.9Ghz quad core.

So, thats a 25% success rate for the known ones in NE Ohio lol.
 
Cecil said:
I got two of them, neither will unlock. One of my friends also has one that will not unlock. My other friend has one that does, and is a stable 3.9Ghz quad core.

So, thats a 25% success rate for the known ones in NE Ohio lol.
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What stepping and date code on those

Mine is a CACAC AC 1004BPMW so far just in this thread 2 have unlocked to 3 cores, haven't tested mine yet

The 1004CPMW's in this thread went 3 for 3
 
I picked a 555 up from microcenter here in columbus, forgot to take pictures of the die and now all I remember is that it's CACAC AC 1004....
It did unlock to 4 cores, blending prime95 overnight to see if any problems crop up, currently 3.6 X4, mobo is an Asus m4a785td-v Evo.

What's an acceptable voltage range for these chips (on air)?
 
So would buying a 550 now yield much higher odds for unlocking? I might pick one up today at microcenter.
 
bought 2 more 1004CPMW from Microcenter today, and both unlocked. Im 5 for 5. Both again overclocked too 3.9. Cant seem to get 4.0 yet with my voltage limit of 1.5125. Glad Microcenter has a great no hassle return policy. Well at least they havent gave me any troubles yet.
 
teary eyed... my newegg replacement gets here tomorrow if it doesn't work out i'ma have to grab one from microcenter ><
 
V4oLDbOY said:
So would buying a 550 now yield much higher odds for unlocking? I might pick one up today at microcenter.
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for the pure fact that the 555's have better voltages and higher overclocking.. id take the 555 over anything.. even if it wasnt unlockable it should and will overclock higher then the 550's in x2 and definitely in x4 modes..
 
GetFunk01 said:
bought 2 more 1004CPMW from Microcenter today, and both unlocked. Im 5 for 5. Both again overclocked too 3.9. Cant seem to get 4.0 yet with my voltage limit of 1.5125. Glad Microcenter has a great no hassle return policy. Well at least they havent gave me any troubles yet.
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just for shits and giggles and to see if it is stable try 1.55v it is the maximum safe limit for the processor.. but even doing 10 passes or something on intel burn test should yield if 4ghz is possible.. if it passes those 10 runs.. then try lowing the voltage a little bit and see if you can keep it stable under 1.55v.. i mean hell your already at 1.51v might as well try a tad bit higher while still within the safe limit of the processor just to see if its possible..
 
The 555 I got today unlocked, but I can tell I'll have to push some voltage get past 3.8. Running at 965 settings atm. Will try messing with it later.
 
I ordered a 550 online, Hopefully my class ends on time so I can pick it up although doesn't matter since I dont have my build complete yet.

So the ones at microcenter are from a good batch? Just confused about if this matters, seems like ti does from looking at the op.
 
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Best bet is probably to buy a used one out of the forums that is known to unlock. Either that or buy from a bunch of retailers and ebay the ones that don't unlock.
 
kirbyrj said:
Best bet is probably to buy a used one out of the forums that is known to unlock. Either that or buy from a bunch of retailers and ebay the ones that don't unlock.
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used one that unlocks might not unlock on your board if your board's picky (or such)... its all about how lucky you are...

and so far, a huge majority of people who got 555 BEs seem to be able to unlock them... only see 2 so far (out of 10+) that fail...

i would say definitely go for the 555 BE over the 550BE unless you want to save money, don't want to overclock or find a really good deal on the old 550 BE... at the FS section, theres someone selling a NIB 555 BE for $95 shipped... I would say if a 555 BE is selling at $95-$105, i would get a 550 BE if its below $80

do keep in mind that you need a performance cooler to get the 555 BE's temp down when you unlock/overclock... and don't buy the 555 BE thinking that you will definitely get a quad core... no guarantees...
 
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