Sempron 140 Gets Second Core Unlocked

Now more (hard)core.

We love getting more chip for our money. That's why we're into overclocking. But an even more interesting way to get more performance for free than overclocking is to unlocking extra cores.

We've seen core unlocking from the AMD Phenom II X2 and X3, but now it seems someone has figured out that the Sempron 140 can also be unlocked to restore it an Athlon II X2 state. Both chips are based on the same silicon, but the Sempron has one of its cores disabled.

If this feat is easily replicated, this could be the cheapest and most full-featured dua core processor for $40. Even better if you can overclock it too (which that same modder did, going from 2.7 GHz to 3.7 GHz).

Read more at Tech Report.