[bit-tech] AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition CPU review - Overclock.net

sodaholic134 · 07-02-09

Quote:

It's probably unnecessary to remind you that AMD has had very few successful "firsts" when it comes to its Phenom line. The latest Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition is, thankfully (or should that be "finally"?), the exception to the rule. It's the first dual-core Phenom II chip - and its actually pretty damn good!

As it's a Phenom II, it's a dual-core of 45nm origins, and is very similar to its bigger triple-core (X3) and quad-core (X4) brothers, only with two cores disabled. This means that with special motherboards, there's the possibility of unlocking the extra cores, although there's no guarantee that they'll work.

The 45nm K10.5 design used by the X2 550 BE features a huge 8MB of common L3 cache - more than enough to act as a snoop filter for just two cores - as well as DDR3 and DDR2 support. Supported memory speeds are faster than the Athlon II: 1,066MHz for DDR2 and 1,333-1,600MHz for DDR3. Another advantage is that this is a Black Edition product - so the multiplier is unlocked for easy overclocking.

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Might try to get this and unlock the cores. Not sure if I'm that lucky.

K10 · 07-02-09

I'm pretty sure that the 550s are guaranteed to unlock assuming you have the right board/bios. There's even a thread on which boards unlock.

Drakemoore · 07-02-09

I've heard the unlocking is rather mixed, some batches unlock to quads and overclock very easily but others have severe failures.

It's unfortunate that we don't have enough electronics stores around and we could all go there and pick out specific batches.

mr. biggums · 07-02-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by K10

I'm pretty sure that the 550s are guaranteed to unlock assuming you have the right board/bios. There's even a thread on which boards unlock.

that will start to change now, amd will start putting in faulty ones now that demand is starting to diminish. from the looks of it now nobody is getting 720's that are unlockable anymore, so it looks like its just the first couple weeks or months in some cases, that there putting working ones out.

K10 · 07-02-09

Also, in relevance to the review, I don't like it when they compare processors clocked at different frequencies.

sodaholic134 · 07-02-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by K10

Also, in relevance to the review, I don't like it when they compare processors clocked at different frequencies.

Yeah, it would be nice to see a clock for clock comparison. But, I think they're trying to show what performance you can expect from the chip. Of course, 3.8ghz is never a given.

K10 · 07-02-09

For that chip 3.8 is easy to get. Many people hit 4.0.

ChrisB17 · 07-03-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by K10

I'm pretty sure that the 550s are guaranteed to unlock assuming you have the right board/bios. There's even a thread on which boards unlock.

Definitely not. I got one that wont unlock.

videoman5 · 07-03-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisB17

Definitely not. I got one that wont unlock.

My 720 won't unlock either.

ZealotKi11er · 07-03-09

Looks like it kills E7XXX in games maybe even E8XXX.

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[bit-tech] AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition CPU review

07-02-09	#3 (permalink)
Drakemoore Overclocker Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Florida Posts: 352 Rep: 12 Unique Rep: 11 Trader Rating: 0	I've heard the unlocking is rather mixed, some batches unlock to quads and overclock very easily but others have severe failures. It's unfortunate that we don't have enough electronics stores around and we could all go there and pick out specific batches.

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