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Those were the Phenom Tripple Core Chips you are thinking of. What the Pencil mod did was enable the 4th core on the Tripple Core Chips. However, the 4th Core was likely a factory rejected core for some reason or another, so enabling it could lead to instability

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> However, the 4th Core was likely a factory rejected core for some reason or another, so enabling it could lead to instability

It may have been a defective core, but when they make these cut-down SKUs they need to meet a quota of units regardless of whether that many salvagable defective chips roll off the line, so it's not uncommon for them to disable perfectly functional hardware. Especially as the process matures and yields improve.

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