AMD Athlon X2 5000+ Unlocks To Quad Core Phenom II X4

AMD is throwing some freebies in the form of $39 processors that are based on the "Deneb" core. This is an example of what I meant when I said that it could still be possible to fetch some "Thuban" hexa-cores to unlock from even cheaper processors than the missing Phenom II X4 960T. This
Read on for details.


The first thing you might notice is that AMD is not selling these processors as neither Athlon IIs nor Athlon 64s but simply as Athlon X2. You can also check that in AMD's site.
Although they do share the numbering of Athlon 64s, these processors are marked as the first "Kuma" based Athlon X2s, which were "Agena" Phenom X4s with disabled cores:

The stepping has been confirmed as CACVC AC 0935FPMW for some models and unlocking is possible in at least the Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P motherboard.

They are not based on the "Propus" core without L3 cache, present in the Athlon II X4 line, but instead it can also unlock the 6MB of L3 cache. So you may end up with a full Phenom II X4 or somewhere in between.

Overclocking is also quite decent for such a cheap CPU, even with unlocked cores 3.2GHz are possible:

The best is definitely the price, $39 at eWiz.

A forum reader has posted that out of 4 processors, they were all unlockable but your mileage may vary:

Last week buy four Athlon x2 5000+. All processors were unlocked to Phenom FX-5000 Quad-Core.
Two of them is overclocked to 3.3Ghz, by default voltage.

 If some of the CPUs weren't defective they wouldn't be selling these cores as $39 CPUs, while others may simply leak some extra current that doesn't allow them to fit the TDP of the current Phenom II lineup.

If you grab yourself a bargain, be sure to drop us a comment.

Source: XtremeSystems