Sempron 140 can unlock to a dual-core

Five finger discount Athlon II...

AMD is making a habit out of launching crippled CPUs that can easily be unlocked to provide access to a disabled core. We saw it with triple-cores, and now it appears you can get an extra core on the new Sempron 140 as well.

The Sempron 140 is a cheap single-core part, based on the Sargas core, which is in fact a crippled Regor dual-core. You just need a motherboard with an AMD SB710 or SB750 sourthbridge with support for the Advanced Clock Calibration and you should be able to turn your Sempron 140 into an Athlon II X2.

[Pandamobile]

Yeah, the tricore phenoms can be unlocked to a quad core too.

Most tricores are defective quads rebranded as triples rather than scrapping them. But some times they ship fully functioning quads to keep up with the demand for the triples. (only the full quads can be unlocked though)

[iTZKooPA]

Just like with overclocking speeds, it's a gamble whether you get chips that can be unlocked successfully or not.

As a former stockholder in AMD I loved the idea of triple cores being put on sale. It meant less waste, therefore more income, in the production arm of the company. I wonder which has a higher profit margin though...discussion for a different website I think :p