We've known for a while now about "Zosma" which is the codename for AMD's Phenom II X4 900T series of processors scheduled for launch soon after the company's X6 (six-core) "Thuban" processors hit the market; on the 26th of this month to be exact.

Zosma is basically a cut down version of Thuban with two cores disabled, giving the potential to unlock the other two cores and get a six-core Phenom for quad-core Phenom money (sub-$200 bracket).

But as was the case with earlier Phenom II X2 and X3 processors, unlocking was always a case of hit and miss where some could do it successfully, others not a chance.

However, good news has come in early about Zosma with OCWorkbench getting confirmation from one of its testers that he was able to unlock the two hidden cores on his Zosma sample as well is being able to make use of Turbo Core technology at the same time. The board he used to achieve this was an ASRock 980GX Extreme3 based on the AMD 890GX+SB850 chipset.

Two Zosma based Phenom II X4s will first be released in the X4 960T and X4 940T operating at 3.3GHz and 3GHz respectively. Turbo Core will give the ability to have these clock rates pushed up to 500MHz higher (depending on the model) on two of the four cores; three out of six cores if the processor's been unlocked.