Knowing that AMD's Phenom II X3 processors are essentially X4 parts with a potentially-defective fourth core, there's always a possibility that the disabled core may still function if one can easily find a way to bring it back to life.
As it turns out, some folks in Korea have been trying just that and have managed to transform a Phenom II X3 710 into a quad-core part via a simple BIOS tweak. According to playwares.com, the aforementioned chip on a Biostar TA790GX motherboard can have its once redundant fourth core enabled by setting "Advanced Clock Calibration" to Auto within the system's BIOS.
Once configured, they found the processor becomes an unheard of AMD Phenom II X4 10, with four fully-functional cores. It's an interesting theory, but remember that Phenom II X3 parts are likely to feature a fourth core deemed unsuitable for use by AMD. The fact that playwares' chip seems to work just fine could be little more than a stroke of luck.
We don't, unfortunately, possess the Biostar TA790GX board, but we're browsing our labs to see if we can rig up a Phenom X3 system and put the theory to the test.
If successful, the £105 2.6GHz Phenom II X3 710 will be looking like a very good deal - particularly when compared to its quad-core sibling, the £150 2.6GHz Phenom II X4 810.
*Update*
We've had a look at our Phenom II X3-based system from CyberPower and changing Advanced Clock Calibration to Auto didn't serve up another core. It could be a tweak that works specifically with Biostar's board, or it could just be that the folks at playwares managed to get their hands on a dodgy-but-lucrative batch of X3 processors.
