Deactivating Cores

[korinu]

My GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H BIOS allows me to deactivate cores on my Phenom 955. I was wondering if anyone could give me details on advantages and disadvantages in deactivating cores to make my 955 a tri or even duel core. This is purely about the advantages and disadvantages not if you personally think i should or shouldn't do it.

Thank you

 

[damasvara]

I agree with both posters above, underclocking/undervolting is a better option. It would be significant in terms of power consumption if you undervolt and downcore. But if you do that, the performance will be significantly compromised.

 

[das_stig]

If your not going to be gaming or video work, underclock/undervolt and enable cool-n-quiet.

 

[loneninja]

You might get an extra 100-200mhz out of an overclock if one of the disabled cores was holding you back. In the end disabling cores will just reduce your systems performance.

 

[korinu]

ive done this and got the t-shirt it does absolutly nothing it still gets as hot as 4-cores so i don`t think it even saves any power.

why would you want to shut down cores?

Was just interested in the fact that i could. A quad core was kinda overkill or me but was cheap so i went with it. Mainly just want to see how i can lower temps and conserve energy.

I did slightly test it myself and yeah it pretty much didn't do much. I my temps stayed the same but my power consumption went from 117W with 4cores at full load to 88W with 3 cores at full load.

 

[korinu]

Best answer selected by korinu.