Unlocking the Phenom II X2 555: 3.2GHz Quad-Core for $99
@ 2010/01/29If you read my take on the 555 you'll know that I don't really believe it's worth the price. Most users will be better off with a Core i3 530. There is just one exception I failed to mention: some Phenom II X2s can be turned into a Phenom II X4.
The technique is nothing new. Using any AMD chipset motherboard with a SB710 or SB750 South Bridge and proper BIOS support you'll have a feature called Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC). AMD introduced this feature back in 2008 as a way to improve overclocking on Phenom processors by sacrificing some sort of corner case stability for real world frequency headroom.
The technique is nothing new. Using any AMD chipset motherboard with a SB710 or SB750 South Bridge and proper BIOS support you'll have a feature called Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC). AMD introduced this feature back in 2008 as a way to improve overclocking on Phenom processors by sacrificing some sort of corner case stability for real world frequency headroom.