tech βοΈ Old CPUs had unlockable cores, but it's over
Some budget CPUs were released with working cores disabled by manufacturers for cost-cutting reasons. This practice was common with AMD's K10 architecture, like the Deneb die, from around 2007 onwards. Enthusiasts could sometimes bypass these factory locks using the Advanced Clock Calibration (ACC) BIOS feature. This allowed certain dual-core CPUs to boot up as quad-core processors, offering huge value. However, modern CPUs now use permanent eFuses and chiplets, making this trick impossible. π»