Will unlocking cores up watts and damage board?

Hello fuzzyplankton   , Welcome to THW.

I do not know much at all about unlocking the AMD CPU's, but in my mind, if the motherboard has a feature to unlock the 4th core, then I think it will most positivly be able to handel the power requirements of doing so.

And for the question about the 95w, I can not say for 100% certainty if unlocking the extra core raises the power use of the CPU or not, it probably adds a little more draw but I cannot say how much.

I have found this forum thread you may want to take a look at: http://www.techenclave.com/cpu-mobo-corner/amd-phenom-i...

I know have not given much information, but that link has alot, I hope that at least helps you out a little.

The board is a ASUS M4A78LT-M LE AM3 AMD 780L Micro ATX AMD Motherboard and the CPU is a AMD Athlon II X3 445 Rana 3.1GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor ADX445WFGMBOX wich unlocks to a AMD phenom II X4 B45 and runs stable.

Well, it seems you have already done the hard work, lol. If you have it unlocked and stable and have not experienced any random BSOD or shutdowns I would say your Ok if you want to keep running your CPU like that, I have read that alot of people are even OC'ing these after being unlocked.

Like I said before it probably does draw a little extra power especially when your really pushing the CPU. This may put an extra strain on your motherboard, but you will have to wait for some other replys from more expierenced AMD folks as I have very little knowledge on AMD's in general without going out and doing research on the web, which I have not been able to find any power numbers as of yet.

Hey, I think I have found the information you are looking for on a very reputable site HERE. It seem by what they say on this page that " It's built on a 45nm process and has around 300 million transistors. The TDP (thermal design power/point) of the Athlon-II X3-445, as well as all Athlon-II X3 and X4 processors, is 95 Watts." I hope thats what you were looking for and that it answers your question for you.  

Hi,

1. No, it will not damage your board.

2. It will not void your warranty, after all is a feature of the board.

3. It is easy to find OC information for this CPU as alot of people are doing or already have done what you are looking to do. You can start by searching tom's for "AMD Athlon II X3 445 Overclock" or try Overclockers.net, Overclockers.com, or simple yahoo or google search, you will find a TON of info.