Mystery CPU (720 non-BE edition)

[wuthrichmr22]

So I've read that AMD never made a non black edition 720 chip, I can't no matter what I try select a multiplier higher than 14x. Did I get screwed here? Where did this chip come from?

Here is what the chip says:

HDX720WFK3DG1
AACYC AC 0916APAW
9288578D90452

CPU-Z

BIOS

Here are my system specs

GA-MA790X-DS4
AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE (or so I thought)
3GB RAM (1gb+2gb) OC to 400mhz
ATI HD4850s in Crossfire
Windows 7 64x Ultimate

 

[wuthrichmr22]

Scratch that, I recently learned there was a small release of non black edition chips, does anyone know their history? were they only vendor and event pieces or something?

 

[pepperman]

Where did you buy the chip from? If it was advertised as a BE you could probably exchange/get your money back. Most likely though is that you need a bios update; try that before you try to return it.

 

[wuthrichmr22]

I bought it as a new AMD Phenom II X3 720 on ebay, I had no idea there was a non black edition of the chip released at launch or as a vendor chip for a few days.

I've done the bios updates, I'm on F9 right now.

 

[umarrehman187]

im confused........how do i chek if mine is not the BE?????cuz ive compared my cpu-z info with urs and its identical???

 

[wuthrichmr22]

check the stepping info on the actual chip, but chances are if the cpu-z doesn't say black edition you're in the same boat as me.

now I just have the figure out how to overclock it with fsb, and if it's even comparable to multi OCing

 

[pepperman]

check the stepping info on the actual chip, but chances are if the cpu-z doesn't say black edition you're in the same boat as me.

now I just have the figure out how to overclock it with fsb, and if it's even comparable to multi OCing

Its not hard, and there are many guides on how to do it here on this site. What's interesting is that sometimes the performance gains are greater than those of multiplier OCing, since you will be raising your NB and RAM frequencies as well (be careful here though, and don't raise the voltages too high; all this info can also be found in the OCing guides).