I read in an atricle some where that the Athlon MP was already unlocked, meaning you could adjust the multi with out connecting the L1 bridges. I am doubious of the validity of this. Any one know for sure?
Probably it's locked... There are very short quantities of unlocked CPUs given by AMD to its best partners for test purposes, but I doubt if this is your case.
Probably the only unlocked Athlons are these testing ones. Intel also give to his large distributors single unlocked CPUs.
When I posted a message on the possiblity to overclock CPU by increasing the FSB to 200 MHz and decreasing the CPU multiplier's ratio, Eden posted a very interesting link: http://www.x86-secret.com/popups/articleswindow.php?id=41
Here are shown the not locked P4s.
according to best information i have seen the athlon MP DOES come factory unlocked.. the only reason i can think of for this is that they are not aimed at the enthusiast market but rather as server procs.. hence AMD probably consider that anyone is unlikely to clock them so they didnt bother with locking them...
I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message.
Final WORD: All mp's come factory unlocked.
Some axps are smp locked(but can be unlocked easily ie. not undoable)
Most axps will work fine in smp mode but they are not guarenteed.