Unlocking Phenom X2 Cores

Only if your lockpicking is 100. It's very hard.

You should be able to do it using BIOS. I'm sure there are guides for your specific mobo+cpu, as it may vary...
Also, there shouldn't be any consequences, it's not like you're overclocking it. It won't use more power than the TDP of it, which is probably fairly low for a CPU which originally has 2 cores.

Throw away motherboard...

Get intel 3rd gen Ivy Bridge Z77 motherboard with PCI 3.0 + i5 or i7 Ivy CPU. CPU is peaked performance, therefore 2nd/3rd generation PCs have redesigned the motherboard + cpu to work together, removing bottle necks by direct access between cpu and memory, as well as direct access between cpu and graphics processing - overall 60-80% performance boost over 1st gen pcs (no overclocking needed, set for years to come).

AMD still in first generation...

GTX 680 works with PCI 3.0, with enough bandwidth you could have 2-3 of them in SLI and still not bottleneck it.

PSU should be around 700W for maximum system stability (allowing SLI future upgrading). 550W is bare minimum for the GTX680, but if stable (depending on other devices used), you might be fine with.

What are you doing that the CPU is bottlenecking? I do a lot of work in Photoshop and use the same processor and have no lags or bottlenecks. I also play Battlefield 3 with everything maxed out and I don't get any bottlenecks. Sounds like you might have another problem going on.

Generally, the reason why a two core wasn't left unlocked and sold as a four core from the factory is because one or more cores didn't meet the voltage requirements on the 1.5V side. Most motherboards that support core unlocking don't raise this voltage automatically during their unlocking process and in many cases unlocking won't be successful (fails stress tests, refuses to boot, only unlocks a 3rd core, etc) until the voltage is manually raised via the BIOS. I suggest setting your voltage to no greater than 1.45V to ensure that there's enough voltage to properly run the unlocked cores. Be careful though and monitor your temps. That 555BE is the low power 80W Phenom processor and increasing the voltage too much will cause a fairly adequate temperature increase. I was amazed that jumping from 1.437V to the 1.451V made an average 7C temperature increase in my build. I don't recommend trying to overclock this processor with the cores unlocked unless you go with a CPU cooler that is way better than stock. If you haven't done so yet, don't be too surprised if you still can't get four cores to work either. It's not uncommon for the 555BE to have only three good cores when unlocked.

Your power supply may be borderline depending on what else you are running. I would go with a 700W minimum.

if u had a triple core, you could unlock the 4th core and make it a quad core, but i never heard of unlocking 2 cores on a dual core chip

you can unlock it to the quad core but it has a chance at failing thats why the cores are locked in the first place

Go into the BIOS, then go to the Advanced tab, CPU Configuration, enable ASUS Core Unlocker and you can either enable or disable CPU Core Activation.

I would try all four cores first and reboot. If it shows the cores have unlocked, but you're crashing, it may require a bit more vCore to become stable. If the crashes continue, return the vCore to normal and only try three cores rather than four. Keep in mind the cores are disabled due to defects or requiring too much voltage to be stable, if it could easily run as an x4 it would have been sold as such.

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