AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz Triple-Core Black Processor unlock 4th core question

[soarwitheagles]

Happy New Year DS,

So sorry, I have never heard the term "informatics"!  I had to look up the meaning of the word!

Informatics (academic field), a broad academic field encompassing human-computer interaction, information science, information technology, algorithms, and social science

    Computer science, the study of complex systems, information and computation using applied mathematics, electrical engineering and software engineering techniques.

    Information science, the study of the processing, management, and retrieval of information...

Very interesting word indeed!

Oh, no, presently I do not work in the computer field per se.  I have dabbled in computers now and then...and at one time did oversee the entire computer network for a school system.

Presently, I am deeply involved on a daily basis in the discipline called Kinesiology.  

Many people ask me what exactly is kinesiology...

Kinesiology, also known as human kinetics is the scientific study of human movement.

And may I ask what do you do for a living?

And now, back to the wonderful world of computers...

You and your wife have nice computers.  I suppose you might say building computers for me is both a business [on the side] and a hobby.  To be totally honest with you, I am beginning to think I need to tone it down a little.  I have been spending too much time online and playing with the various components.

My present goal is to upgrade both rigs, then leave them be for the next 6-12 months.  And yes, I do like to upgrade about every 6-12 months.  Because we do a lot of buying and selling of computer components as part of a small side business, I usually have components left over that I can use free of cost, so most of my new builds cost very little or zero.  And I like that.  On the other hand, I must be careful to not become a spoiled little brat [an annoying child who behaves badly]!  Or as some may say, "garnement."

I also like to build computers for friends and relatives and surprise them [this is a nice way to bless others and also get rid of excess stock]!  My favorite part is watching their faces as they play on their new computer.

So, yes, I will definitely post after putting together this tri-core system that has potential for quad core.  I will also do my best to post some pics of it too.

I do not know how to delete my foolish posting of my serial number....

I will PM Absic and DM to see if they have the authority to do so.

I have posted pics of my two most recent rigs below.  I would like to switch out the present motherboard GA-890 for the newer 990XFA-UD3.  I know this sounds spoiled, but I like the idea of an upgrade and especially an upgrade that has a black motherboard rather than the same old Gigabyte Blueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!  I am hoping Gigabyte will take the lead in the industry by beginning to vary the colors of their motherboards so we can all have much more fun!  How about Neon Red, Outrageous Orange, Pearly Pink, Lime Green, Zoned Out Zebra, or Diamond Jet Black?  Dude, this blue is starting to grow on me too much!  And NO, I am not gay!

I just acquired a new Antec Red Air Lanboy for the AMD upgrade.  I would like it to look unique.  I could not bear to put in the Gigabyte blue again.  It simply does not match with the Candy Red of the Lanboy!

Oh no!  Perhaps I truly have become spoiled!

DS, thanks again for your help and good advice and enabling me to understand a little more about this business of opening the hidden core in the 720.

Enjoy the new year!  I believe it will another wonderful year to bless people and make other peoples lives more happy and more cheerful!

Cheers!

Soar

[DarkstaR]

Happy new year Soar !!
Waoww !! what a post you've written...could have been a writer my dear...
I'm surprised that the word "informatics" doesn't exist in english as for hardware components the french translation means "composants informatiques" and the word "informatique" in french corresponds to software world and hardware world 
So back to the subject yes why not sending a mp to absic in order to erase this serial number ? you've got a good idea !! Thanks for recognizing that my wife and i having good rigs... did you see that i already have a rig for my son ? it's clear that when it will be mounted it will be "has been" but performant enough for him and i...and now i've decided to spare money as those last 5 years i've too much spent money for hardware components caus' i don't work in hardware shop so all i mount i have to spend it (french e-shops...) so all that is very expensive, i've succeded in selling my old parts on the second hand market but those sells don't bring me enough money to buy the new rig i wanted...in effect i've desired to change my rig in order to be in ddr3 system (for a 890fxa or 990fxa + one 2x4gb gskill kit) but after all it doesn't change very much i told myself... my rig is still good enough and on the contrary i've decided to go across the years with our rigs...ddr2 systems till death !! We will just change graphic cards when necessary
So concerning the colour of the Gigabyte pcb it depends on everybody's opinion...as it's clear in the past i loved Msi red mobos and then when they made their blackline with their platinum series, i loved the green pcb too of the Epox mobos, i hated the sand-brown pcb of the legacy Asus boards and i have always loved the petrol blue pcb of the legacy and actual mobos of Gigabyte and i'm not enough used to see black pcbs for their mobos... 

[soarwitheagles]

DS,

Thank you for your nice reply!

The word "informatics" does exist in English, but I had never heard of it before.  The nice thing about having friends overseas is that they often have better English skills than me, and I can learn a lot from them!

I admire your patience and self-control in waiting to build a new system!  But I must admit, you must be sorely tempted to purchase a SSD!  Your system would really fly with one!

Ok, please tell me what is your dream rig?

Unfortunately for me, time and money prevent me from building my dream rig, but I am happy with what I have.  Color coordination and aesthetics  have become an important issue for me.  I like the "wows" from my friends when they come and visit.  I also like to post pics on forums like this that are pleasing to the eye...all of course without sacrificing too much performance and money!

My builds and rigs are nothing compared to geniuses like Dark Mantis...my goodness!  Have you seen his pics of his builds?  I was so proud of my new builds until one day I saw the pics of his computer....suddenly I felt 174 centimeters shorter and my ears turned bright lime green with envy!  In fact, the next time I went to the toilet, I had trouble using it because I was only 4 centimeters tall!

Speaking of DM, he graciously removed my foolish posting of my serial for all the world to read...

DS, I have joined many, many forums from all over the world, but I must admit, this forum is by far the very best! Here is why I like it so much:

1. People here treat me nicely, even though I do not know very much compared to them [they are free from attitudes of pride and arrogance].
2. The knowledge of the moderators is impeccable [I have never been given wrong advice].
3. There is a friendliness here that I have seen no where else [people here are kind].
4. There is a freedom from trolling and vindictiveness.
5. There is a humility [if the moderators do not know the answer, they are quick to say so].

I am very, very happy to have found Gigabyte Forums and the friends I have found here!

Thank you everyone for making this such a positive and wonderful experience!

Up, up, and away, into greater builds and higher speeds!

Soar

[DarkstaR]

Well spoken my dear...you are unique in your kind  Concerning my dream rig i even don't know whether i would like to have one in fact... it's sure i'd like to test the i7 2600k/2500k and the powerful i7 990x too in bench to see the difference with my rig... i think i will early or late buy a ssd for my os system... otherwise i've already had cases with plexi sides (second hand Antec lanboy and a TT xaser III with blue leds fans) but i do prefer "sobre" and smooth cases which breathe quality and serious now... I think i'm an Antec addict 
I've registered in the french Gigabyte forum with the same nickname and in another french general hardware forum (multibrands  )
Here is my listing of hardware components: (classified by preference order) 1- mainboards  2- cpus  3- graphics cards  4- cases  5- memory kits  6- psus  7- hard drives/optical drives  8- sound cards (besides i still have the legendary creative soundblaster live 5.1 !!!! --> my unique sound card in fact).
By the way did you succeed in unlocking your 720 ?

[soarwitheagles]

Intel Core i7-990X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.46GHz LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor???  I never even heard of it until you mentioned it!  I checked it out at NewEgg and suddenly I began to experience the identical classic symptoms:  Ears turn green, I begin to shrink just like the movie: "Honey, I shrunk the kids," and finally, I look at my what was before my very nice Intel i5-2500k, and it suddenly doesn't look so nice anymore!

Oh well, such is life I suppose!

Ok, no, I have not yet even begun on the 720 yet.  The reason is I wanted to finish the Lanboy with the new Gigabye 990XFA-UD3/1055t combo.

I was aiming to purchase one of the new FX Bulldozer CPU's for the new the new Gigabye 990XFA-UD3, when a friend at another forum showed me benchmarks where even the not so fast 1055t kicks the bottom on several of the new BD's!  He recommended I stay with the 1055t, and since there are no 1090t's or 1100t's available at a good price, I believe I will follow his good advice.

I only have 7 days left of our vacation, so I must begin this wonderful project soon.

Maybe I could have some input from people here on my intended AMD Phenom II X3 720 build.  Here are the excess components I have laying around and I am not sure which ones I should include:

AMD Phenom II X3 720
Biostar A870U3 or the used Gigabyte 890XA-UD3 v.1
Antec Six-Hundred Black [new] or the used CoolerMaster Sniper from my old build
XFX 650 Modular PSU or Antec 620 PSU or cheap
8gb RAM either Gskil, Corsair, or Patriot
Cooler Master 212+ or Xigmatek Loki or Xigmatek Dark Night or Zigmatek Gaia or Coolermaster V-8

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Soar

[DarkstaR]

Yes this gulftown must be wonderful...above all on cinebench 11.5 with its 12 cores working (6 + hyperthreading  ).
Concerning your future rig if i were you i would let the 890xa (770 chipset in fact) which is better built (better power phase design: 4+1 vs 3+1 for the biosatr and ultra durable feature for the Gig.).
For the psu i don't know the best choice is to check which one has the highest +12v rail, for the ram those 3 manufacturers are welll known just take the kit which proposes the highest frequency with the lowest latency... for the heatsink i would say the 212+ or why not the now legendary Antec Kühler ? Or stay with Noctua 

[soarwitheagles]

DS,

Yes, that Gulftown is in a class all of its own!  I now need to change many aspects of this build.  Last night I took out my new Antec Lanboy to begin the transfer of components from my CM Sniper to the Lanboy.  Well, everything came to a screeching halt.  When I placed the Lanboy side by side with the CM Sniper, it was totally obvious I could not give up the Lanboy for the Sniper.

Oh boy! Or maybe I should say Oh Lanboy...after unpacking the Lanboy case it was kind of disappointing. So disappointing that I decided to not use it!

Here were the deciding factors:

This Antec Lanboy Air case is incredibly flimsy [yet I read numerous reviews ranting about how strong and solid this case was. Obviously these reviewers have never seen or worked with a Sniper, HAF 932, or HAF X].
This Antec Lanboy Air case has only 3 External 5.25" Drive Bays unless I remove one of the two front case fans [obviously my fault for not reading the specs more carefully]
This Antec Lanboy Air case is significantly smaller than the Sniper case I am presently using [so much so, I just crossed it off my list].
This Antec Lanboy Air case has way too much plastic for my requirement for safety [I prefer strong steel just in case someone accidentally kicks it or bumps into it].
This Antec Lanboy Air case fans are all controlled by tiny little switches some of which are located inside the case.
This Antec Lanboy Air case would be a downgrade rather than an upgrade for me considering my needs and requirements.

So all in all, from my perspective, it has lots of eye candy, lots of modular possibilities, and lots of unique features, but is missing some of the basic functionality that I require to feel comfortable with it.

Darn! I looked at this case repeatedly at Fry's but I think my eyes were only on the candy! I suppose looks can be deceptive.

Oh well, lesson learned.

Now I am much more limited by what I can use for this AMD 720.

Unfortunately, I need to use the BIOSTAR A870-U3 MB, so out of respect for Gigabyte, I will no longer post here on this build.  DS, I totally agree with you that the Gigabyte 890XA-UD3 is a much better motherboard.  But for now it remains in the Sniper and I must build this AMD 720 with the components that are free at the moment.

Thanks again for all your help and good advice.

I do not have an account at BIOSTAR and I do not even know if they have a forum, but I will check it out.  I sincerely doubt I will find as good of people and support that I have found here....but I must complete this build now and go on with life...

Have a wonderful day there!

Soar

[DarkstaR]

Superb installation Soar, cheer up  Is this case the six-hundred ? I must make a correction of what i said about your Gig mainboard it has in fact a 790x chipset instead of the 770 despite the 890xa name... its southbridge is the sb850 instead of the 750 which has the acc function...so you have the Gig feature called core unlock to replace acc... but don't worry the results will be the same...Indeed AMD has drawn back this feature (Advanced clock calibration) which is only present on the sb 710 + 750 chipsets...so let's test this Biostar and you have well done letting your 890xa with the 1055t...by the way did you try to o/c it ? (the 1055t)

[soarwitheagles]

Thanks again DS.  Yes, that is the Antec 600 Black version [even though the interior is grey]!  I am thinking about painting it black before installing everything into it...I had to do the same with my HAF 932.

I would still like to replace the 890xa with the 990XFA, but do not have the time at the present moment.  I do have a question:

If I switch out the 890XA with the 990 XFA, will I need to do an entire reformat?  Please let me know if this is required.

Yes, I have toyed a little with overclocking the 1055t but only by using the dreaded Easy Tune...and I do not like Easy Tune because in the past it has at time created terrible instability with my system.

And I do not know how to overclock using strictly the BIOS, and I have never tried Cloud OC that Gigabyte so graciously offers!

So sorry!

Soar

[DarkstaR]

Hi Soar  i see when reading you that the look of your pcs is very important... i'd never heard yet that someone has painted the interior of his case only to match with the rest of his components !
As i said before i prefer smooth look and i hate tweaking the original style of the manufacturer... but everyone has one's proper opinion about that...
As regards overclocking sooner using easytune (i use it but just for the monitoring function) the best is to use the bios for your 1055t go to MIT
- set the fsb to manual then raise it to 250
- as your cpu has its multi locked let it to auto or set it to 14x
- set the cpu nb ratio to 8x
- idem for the ht frequency (set to 1,6ghz -> 1600/2=8x)
Indeed for better stability uncore frequency/cpu nb frequency (means internal memory controller of your Phenom) should stay at 2000mhz/4000mhz and it is the same for the ht frequency (hypertransport 3.0) -> for both 8x250= 2000mhz/2ghz
And 14 (cpu multi) x 250 (htt or fsb)= 3500mhz/3,5ghz which is the overclocked cpu frequency that your 1055t should reach without any problem 
As regards voltages set them to manual and set the cpu vcore to 1,375v, the ddr3 voltage to 1,60-1,625v) and the soutbridge + northbridge to auto.
In the "advanced chipset features" set the dual channel mode to "unganged" then the memory clock to 6,66 (6,66x250= 1665mhz which are supported by you ddr3 kit) in the "advanced bios features" set to enabled the cool and quiet then save and exit.
And there you are with a cpu went from 2,8ghz to 3,5ghz which will lower its frequency and its voltage in idle mode thanks to cnq --> that's cool life 

[soarwitheagles]

DS,

Americans are notorious for placing an over emphasis upon outward appearance!  This being the truth, yes, I just finished painting the interior of the Antec 600 Black computer case and it does look noticeably better!  A while back, I also painted the interior of my new HAF 932 case because it had the very ugly gray color....yuk!

DS, it is super easy for me to paint these cases because we have a nice compressor with a very nice paint gun, so it only cost pennies, and only requires a little painters tape and remove some parts.  Not difficult at all to be honest with you!

Now I do have a question...

Are all those overclocking instructions for my 1055t with the Gigabyte 890XA-UD3?

Please let me know.

Thanks,

Soar

[DarkstaR]

Very well painted !!  I can see the biostar mobo and the xigmatek heatsink... what are the memory modules ?
Otherwise what i posted on my previous post are the instructions for a good overclock of your 1055t with your 890xa-ud3... just replace the part "advanced bios features" by "dram configuration" in MIT section (i've mistaken indeed).
Your 1055t can easily reach 14x250= 3,5ghz @ 1,375v Soar don't worry about that...your cpu is like a race car engine which has only the will of being run 

[soarwitheagles]

DS,

Thanks for the nice complement...but perhaps I should have taken my time a little bit more...but job done and I am sure the user will like it much better than the dull boring gray!

Memory Modules were on sale for under $10 for 8gb.  They are the Corsair DDR3 1600 value series.  The most important thing for me on the RAM was the 1.5 volts.  I am still not sure if I will use them because the eye candy is sparse...not nice heat sinks...but for now, they are doing the job and should work well when the testing time comes.

I have lots of the tall Corsair Vengeance, but I must still measure to see if the heat sinks will fit under the Xigmatek fan.  I will try them once the basic testing is over.  The tall Corsair Vengeance will not work on my present boards that have the CM Hyper 212+ CPU cooler...the fan blocks one entire slot...ouch!  The good news is I was able to find 16gb of the Corsair 1600 DDR3 Vengeance low profile and they are working quite well at the moment!

Unfortunately, I could only find a good deal on the blue version...I'd prefer the black version!

Ok, another question....will those same over clock settings work for the GA990XFA-UD3?  I have decided to change out MB's now [it is the only MB I have that has the USB 3.0 header on the MB].

Please let me know.

Thanks DS!

Soar

[DarkstaR]

Your memory kit is a good performance one with low consumption characteristics...good choice  (i would have preferred the black too).
And yes the settings i've advised to you should work with the 990fxa-ud3 as it has got the same bios functions (M.I.T).
Just remember to set the dram voltage at 1,525v or 1,55v (low consumption memory modules instead of 1,625v-1,65v for normal ddr3 memory) if you notice instability which is often due to not enough dram voltage set by users...

[soarwitheagles]

Your memory kit is a good performance one with low consumption characteristics...good choice   (i would have preferred the black too).
And yes the settings i've advised to you should work with the 990fxa-ud3 as it has got the same bios functions (M.I.T).
Just remember to set the dram voltage at 1,525v or 1,55v (low consumption memory modules instead of 1,625v-1,65v for normal ddr3 memory) if you notice instability which is often due to not enough dram voltage set by users...

DS,

Ok, thanks for the info.  I will give it a try after I finish building this Gigabyte 990XFA-UD3 AMD upgrade...the entire system is in little bitty pieces at the moment...yes, spread out all over the work bench!  

BTW, the AMD 720 rig is now complete and ready to try some unlocking and over clocking.

Could you please help me take my first baby steps in this strange work of unlocking a hidden core?

The system is up and running and ready to take the adventure into the wonderful world of unlocking and overclocking!

Thanks,

Soar