K10

AMD K10 is AMD's follow-on CPU architecture to K8.

Strictly speaking, "K10" is not AMD's nomenclature for this architecture, with official documentation referring to it by the CPUID identifier: Family 10h. However, nearly every other source of information or discussion refers to it as K10, in line with K8 and previous architectures.

Notable improvements to K10 over its predecessor (K8):

• Introduced SSE4 instructions (including SSE4a instructions unique to AMD)
• L3 cache (up to 8MB)
• 128-bit SSE units

AMD Athlon II

Note: the below is discussion of the Socket AM3 Athlon II CPUs. Click here for the Socket FM1 version, which is only tangentally related.

Athlon II is the mid-range counterpart to AMD's flagship series at the time, the Phenom II, and the successor to the Athlon X2 family.

Notable improvements to Athlon II over Athlon X2:

• Produced on GlobalFoundaries 45nm SOI process node (from 65nm)
• Support for DDR3 memory

To create the Athlon II CPUs, AMD used binned Phenom II dies, by disabling two (or more) cores as well as the L3 cache. The original fully-enabled dies are listed below for reference:

Each variant of these dies was given a different codename, and is listed below:

Some motherboards are able to "unlock" lower tier variants to a higher tier one, or even to a full Phenom II. This feature is known as ACC (Advanced Clock Calibration) or UCC. A full spreadsheet of K10 unlock results can be found here. Note that there is per-unit variance in these unlocks. Some chips will fully unlock successfully. Others may have stability issues or not not boot at all. You may also only have the core unlock and not cache, or vice versa.

Note: When these features are enabled, temperature readouts for individual cores is broken. However, all-core temperature reads fine.

Useful information for overclocking (quirks) :

• Max Voltage for Athlon II: 1.5-1.55V (Anecdotal based on curator experience)
• Some chips become unstable when the temperature exceeds 65C. It is recommended to keep the temperature below this point.
• Overclocks may be most stable when running Windows XP
• Most C3 stepping and almost all E0 stepping 4 core chips should be able to hit 4Ghz under 1.5V
• X2/X3 "Business" CPUs have a high chance of successful core unlock
• C3 steppings with late date codes (2012/2013) overclock very well
• Some chips can handle up to DDR2-1200 or DDR3-1900. 1100 and 1866 are more realistic for the average sample.