Dual or more?

[dwisen]

I have a Phenom II x2 555 BE. I was able to unlock one of the two "hidden - locked" cores and overclock it to a stable 3.82 Ghz.
I mainly use my pc for gaming and online activities. I do not do much multimedia editing other than photoshop cs4.

my question is would i be better off running my proc. as a dual core and overclocked
(i think i can hit the 4.0Ghz mark as a dual core, have not not tested this yet)
or leave the 3rd core unlocked and keep it @ 3.82Ghz

which of the two setups would make the proc last longer and perform better in a gaming atmosphere?

The highest sys req games that i have are
Crysis
Farcry 2
GTA 4
Ghostbusters
Grid and a few others.
None of which take real advantage of more than 2 cores, that i am aware of.

Thank you ahead of time.

 

[dwisen]

Thank you for your reply.
What about the longevity of the Proc?
what would be better in terms in making this beast last?
and lastly how much of a difference would be made if i back the clock down to a more suitable 3.5-3.6Ghz?

 

[dwisen]

on a side note.

i was able to unlock the 4th core and get windows to boot but when ran any application that put the cpu under stress like prime 95, windows crashes.
no matter how much voltage i apply to make the 4th core "stable" (up to 1.4v)
and if i run a game like GRID for example i get odd graphical anomalies.
does this mean that my 4th core is truly defective?
lastly i have heard of cases that a mobo was able to unlock cores but could not make them stable, but a mobo swap would make all 4 cores unlock and run stable.
could that also be the problem?

 

[saaiello]

Are these instabilities at stock or at your OC of 3.82 because seriously 3.82GHZ is a pretty big OC for that processor. Have you ran Prime95 at stock speeds with the 4th core unlocked? For gaming anything over 3.2 ghz isnt gonna add too much performance increase if you can get the 4th core stable at a lower clock speed you would see better performance in games that can use all 4 cores.

 

[dwisen]

Thank you.

 

[dwisen]

Best answer selected by dwisen.