unholy - i do not doubt what you say but can you provide some reference about this hack? thank you.
assuming it works then i know this CPU can do 1080p video on its own because i'm already doing that with a 4850e (X2 2.5ghz/45W) using MPC-HC. several of my older 1080p rips are not DXVA complient and rely on CPU for decode.
this is a nice deal for a low-powered HTPC. should be able to complete it with $20 RAM, $50 case/cpu, and hopefully re-use some old hard drive and copy of windows.
edit: as last poster said it's not a sure thing... from Newegg reviews:
"Pros: Some have stated this proc can have it's second core unlocked, and I can atest to that, but it's by pure luck, my friend and I both have the same mobo that can unlock this proc, his unlocked, mine did not. Putting my cpu in his board did not run dual core. Short point is you either get lucky or you don't"
Message edited by: austonia on 2009-09-23 12:50:27 CDT
I'm not sure if 100% of these chips unlock, so please do some research. It definitely is a high percentage of success if it's not 100% success, so it's still worth a shot @ this price for many people.
All you have to do is enable ACC (Advanced Clock Calibration) in your BIOS settings to enable the additional core.
austonia said:unholy - i do not doubt what you say but can you provide some reference about this hack? thank you.
assuming it works then i know this CPU can do 1080p video on its own because i'm already doing that with a 4850e (X2 2.5ghz/45W) using MPC-HC. several of my older 1080p rips are not DXVA complient and rely on CPU for decode.
this is a nice deal for a low-powered HTPC. should be able to complete it with $20 RAM, $50 case/cpu, and hopefully re-use some old hard drive and copy of windows. The answer to those 1080P movies that play choppy is CoreAVC. My HTPC is a BE-2350 (dual-core AMD, 45W) that runs 2.8ghz and RAM @ 400mhz 5-5-5-15 2T. Some of my 1080P movies would be choppy where the video would lag behind the audio. It really is a simple solution. I tried so many things to try to figure out the issue, and I'll just keep it short and tell you that CoreAVC was my final answer (unless you want to pay for a much more powerful CPU). Those same videos would play just fine on my E8400 rig, so it was in fact my CPU that was lacking in power, but as I said CoreAVC took care of that for me.
You have to pay for it, or you can go the other route to obtain it which I will not explain...
Message edited by: g0dMAn on 2009-09-23 12:50:31 CDT
Just to clarify the second core issue, when companies like AMD and Intel manufacture processors, the dual cores that have a core failure get the bad core disabled and are sold as single cores. If there is more demand for single core cpu's than there are failures, perfectly good dual cores get one core turned off, but its still functional if re-enabled.
In the early stages of production for a processor, there is a higher failure rate than there is as it reaches maturity and towards the end of production the fail rate is extremely low.
So if you buy a CPU that's been made for a few months, odds are good you'll get a single core with a bad core in it. Towards the end, most likely two good cores.
If you're buying old, old stock or brand new stock, same rules may sway your 'luck'.
Within the past week, there have been combo deals from the egg and frys around $100 for Pentium dual core. Aren't those a lot more powerful than a Sempron?
Sorry for the newbie question, I haven't bought a combo in years and am a little out of it.
mpkb said:Within the past week, there have been combo deals from the egg and frys around $100 for Pentium dual core. Aren't those a lot more powerful than a Sempron?
Sorry for the newbie question, I haven't bought a combo in years and am a little out of it.
Well, the AMD one on Newegg is for an ECS mobo and not a lot of people like them. The mobo itself is around $30ish AR and the cpu is around 60ish to total to around 100ish. This deal, however, is for a better (gigabit or something) mobo that some people might be willing to pay for (dual video output)
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mpkb said:Within the past week, there have been combo deals from the egg and frys around $100 for Pentium dual core. Aren't those a lot more powerful than a Sempron?
Sorry for the newbie question, I haven't bought a combo in years and am a little out of it. The gigabyte board in this deal is of a much higher quality and feature level than the other ~$100 deals. The AMD cpu included in this deal is relatively low-end, but if you can unlock the 2nd core, you should have a cpu that is competitive with the Core2 or Pentium Dual Core cpu's included in the recent deals. With both cores working, this Sempron should place somewhere in the range of an E5200 or E6300. For a normal use computer or an HTPC, this is very usable and probably more power than you need (exceptions: gaming, video editing, or a general massive lack of patience).
The major downside of this board and all 785G boards is the (slightly astounding) lack of multi channel LPCM over HDMI. Nobody can figure out how or why AMD dropped the ball on this one.
thanks op looks like a great deal. My main pc just died, this will do great for a while to hold me over till black friday, then will make a great htpc build.
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glad to share the info
