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To Overclocking Fans

by Anna Filatova
07/11/2002 | 07:17 AM

The opening mind of an overclocker can sometimes think of really outstanding things trying to squeeze a couple of extra MHz out of the poor CPU. Some fans get so carried away by the whole thing that overclocking becomes their ultimate goal, so that they are trying to prove everyone they’ve got the fastest system ever, even if it is absolutely unsuitable for work in normal conditions. This is the type of overclocking mania we are going to tell you about now.

Some enthusiasts from the country of the Rising Sun, as we read over here, managed to overclock AMD Thoroughbred 2200+ processor (1.8GHz) up to the impressive 2.7GHz (FSB=402.37MHz), which corresponds to the 3600+ performance rating.<%BANNER[article]%>

The poor thing got tortured (this is what we can call it actually) with a copper reservoir with liquid nitrogen and then they started the system to take some screenshots from the WCPUID program. The guys didn’t run any other benchmarks, which might have been caused by the system instability while the nitrogen was evaporating from the reservoir. However, even if there had been any benchmarks run, they wouldn’t have had any practical value, because it is simply impossible to work with a system like that normally.

Here is the testbed configuration for your reference:

EPoX EP-8K7A Rev1.1 mainboard;
128MB Crucial PC2100 ES DDR SDRAM;
Matrox Millennium PCI 4MB graphics card;
Maxtor 5T020H2 20GB HDD;
ABLECOM SP401-RA 400W PSU;
Windows NT 4.0 SP6.

The system worked at the following voltages:

CPU Vcore: 2.15V;
I/O circuits: 4V;
Vdimm: 3.56V.

Formally, we have every right to hand in the laurels to the Japanese enthusiasts, however this overclocking experience is to satisfy their ambitions only. Of course, someone may manage to overclock the same Thoroughbred up to, say, 2.4GHz, with the normally working cooling system, such as liquid cooling, for instance. In case the system will turn suitable for normal everyday work, we will definitely place our preferences with this solution, because we will be able to feel the positive effect of overclocking.

As for AMD Company, they will not overclock their Thoroughbred and even Barton cores up to these crazy frequencies, because the die yields will be very low, which will tell on the company image in far not the best way. These CPUs like that will also cost crazy money, which will change the positioning of the entire family in the market.

Actually, you will hardly need these extremely high speeds, especially as the new ClawHammer is coming out soon to start competing with multi-GHz monsters from Intel.

All in all, guys, overclock your CPUs, but do it carefully and smartly, otherwise you will cruelly burn your "guinea pig".

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