Took a long time but, great review.

Only thing I thought it was missing was power consumption numbers under overclocked condiditions, including the P2 with 3 cores and the 4th unlocked core.

Hi,

I have a question about unlucking the 4rth core.
I have the exact same motherboard and also use the latest f3 revision bios.
But I cannot find the Advanced Clock Calibration option.
Could you send me your bios, I use gigabytes @bios program for flashing the bios.
The same program can also save your current bios to file.
And could you tell me specificly were the ACC option is.

Thanks in advance,

Great review. I would seriously consider buying X3 Phenom II after readig this.
BTW these comments should be just below the review, without the need to click on a link before showing.

One thing I don't get.. why are numbers in games LOWER when 4th core was enabled? Mistake in article or some bug related to 4th core? Can't be because of 0,03GHz .. Could it?

Any chance of putting in the power consumption readings of the overclocked X3 720 @ 3.7Ghz, the X3 720 with the fourth core enabled (overclocked and not) and the overclocked E7500? Awesome review btw!

AMD tripple core to compete with Intel Dual core? X3 die area is 260mm^2, E7x00 is less than 80mm^2.

Interesting piece. Quick question - with the forth core unlocked with the F3 bios, can your system "warm "boot ( following a windows shutdown)? I find with the same mobo and bios it will never exit POST, and occasionally refuse to power back until I remove power at the wall for 5 minutes.

However, it's perfectly stable at 3.2 Ghz with + 0.1v with the quad core enabled in windows, and going to Bios 4A from Gigabyte re-locks the 4th core :/

Hmm...

Are you kidding me? You need to test it against the 8400 which is selling for closer to the same price. If you do this test, and do it with both overclocked versions, even enable the 4th core, I guarantee you Intel blows AMD away. Though I wish it weren't true...

Donno if it is right to put the link here but this processor has achieved 6GHz!
http://www.techtrance.net...-ii-x3-720-black-edition/

I've got a Biostar TA790GX Motherboard and a Phenom 2 X3 720 BE CPU. I had no asperations of trying to get a fourth core from the three core processor but after reading the article on Tom's Hardware concerning their attempts at unlocking the fourth core with limited success I decided to enable the ACC in my bios and instantly after rebooting I came up with what appears to be a stable fourth core. I ran Cinebench for establishing a benchmark between the two cores (three and four) and here are the results:

Three Cores:
Rendering (Single CPU): 3226 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 8582 CB-CPU

Four Cores:
Rendering (Single CPU): 3177 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 11533 CB-CPU

The change appears to be completely stable at this point and I'm currently into about the third hour of running it on Prime95 to check for any possible instability with positive test results so far! Also Sisoft Sandra 2009 recognized it as an AMD Phenom II X4 940.