T3h_Ch33z_Muncha

No. The original reason AMD sold X3 and X2 chips with disabled cores was because they were/are defective. To keep up with demand (ironically because of this unlocking), however, AMD has had to disable cores on perfectly working chips, resulting in cores that can be unlocked.

There is no way of finding out whether the X2 or X3 you just bought has (a) defective core(s) or not.

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Please don't call me Muncha, as cheese is not the only insinuatable munchable object; Ch33z will suffice. Oh, and i almost forgot to express my love for Heru
Planned upgrades (kind of in order): 22" Monitor, Goliathus Omega (mousepad), new chair, Windows 7, CM 690, new desk, Ideazon ZBoard MERC, Sennheiser HD201, bong, DX 11 card(s)+necessary PSU
Epic things happening in 2010: Toy Story 3, new H.I.M album, Supreme Commander 2, MechWarrior, The Elder Scrolls V, Mafia II, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Bioshock 2, Crysis 2, Iron Man 2

sLowEnd

There's no guarantee for anything other than what you buy

Even plain old overclocking isn't guaranteed

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K10

Either way, you shouldn't be buying a processor just to get a steal on a potential quad. Should just be thought of as a bonus(assuming you can get it stable).

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Gr3m1in

As someone with a 550 i have to say it's easy to overclock the hell out of, but getting your extra cores enabled is luck of the draw

Personally i have managed to get my 550 4ghz game (but not prime) stable with little trouble and could prob push out more with tweaking if i had the time and i wasn't so busy

I have also unlocked my cores but haven't been able to get get it stable enough to boot windows yet, thats assuming it ever will be stable enough

Either way its an awesome chip on a budget, and the 6mb L3 Cache really gives it a very nice boost in games etc over the Athlon II

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