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Overclockers Hit 7.2GHz Frequency

New Pentium XE 965 Overclocking Record Set

by Aleksey Razin

[ 04/19/2006 | 03:27 PM ]

The path towards successful extreme overclocking experiments with Presler C1 core stepping was pretty thorny but some lucky ones managed to get through. At least those guys who had some liquid nitrogen at their disposal didn’t have any problems with their CPUs showing really impressive results. So, these were the hope and pride of the overclocking community at this point.

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The 7.0GHz bar was conquered by the Pentium XE 955 processor with B1 core stepping, so everybody would expect Pentium XE 965 processor with C1 core stepping to show at least some small but convincing frequency boost. Luckily, the hopes came true: one Turkish hardware enthusiast reported about his overclocking success in XtremeSystems.org forum. He managed to bring his dual-core Pentium XE 965 (3.73GHz) processor to work at 7.2GHz with the help of liquid nitrogen cooling system.

Note that the system would run stably only at 6852MHz, and the SuperPI test results in this case made 19.562s.

As you already know from our news, the mobile Celeron M based on a 0.065micron Yonah core has recently demonstrated similar performance result. Well, looks like high clock speed is not always the answer :)

Although Presler core with C1 core stepping has set a new absolute overclocking record, the relative frequency increase is less than 100%, because the nominal speed of this processor model is 3.73GHz. To hit the 100% mark the CPU should have reached 7.46GHz frequency. I believe some extreme overclockers out there will manage that also.

I would like to point out that Pentium XE 965 processor works at 1.2-1.3375V Vcore, while its predecessor, Pentium XE 955, worked with 1.25-1.4V Vcore. C1 core stepping of the Presler core has evidently brought in lower nominal voltages. It is usually an important factor for more efficient overclocking, which seems to be partially true for the Pentium XE 965 processor we are talking about. All it needs now is just more efficient cooling to really show off its overclocking potential.