Author: Gian-Carlo Pascutto
Date: 09:41:40 01/01/02
Go up one level in this thread
On December 31, 2001 at 13:37:33, David Dory wrote: >On December 30, 2001 at 10:09:51, Gian-Carlo Pascutto wrote: > >>On December 30, 2001 at 09:33:38, David Dory wrote: >> >>>A little confusing since ALL the top Athlon's run at 1.6 GHZ. What >>>differentiates thd "1600" "1700" "1800" and "1900" is the CPU's ability to run >>>"overclocked", that is, within higher design parameters. >> >>This is completely wrong. >Sorry. The numerical sequence on the chip DOES nenote the ability of the chip to >run "overclocked" and within higher design parameters, according to the MSI >motherboard book, and AMD. If I get what you mean, you phrased it very badly. All the XP chips have the same design. What differentiates them is what clockspeed they appear to run stable at. This is tested in the factory and makes the difference between the chips. However, this is true for any chip, not just the Athlon. There are less chips that pass the stability tests at high clockspeeds, so they are more expensive etc... The way you put it it sounds as if all Athlon XP's are (factory guaranteed) to run stable at 1.6Ghz. That is not true. There is a big difference between 'overclocking' which has a pejorative connotation and running within higher design parameters. The second is guaranteed to be stable, whereas the first certainly is not. >>The '1600-1800' designation on the Athlon XP is used a performance >>indicator compared to (of that I'm not sure) classic Athlons or >>Intel's Pentium IV. It is not the clock speed. > >That's why I put "overclocked" in quotes, and used the phrase "higher design >parameters". I'm sure "higher performance parameters" is more correct. It >appears the term "overclocked" is both specific to the CPU clock speed and is >used as a general descriptor to denote higher performance. Yes. You should not exchange the two because they do mean very different things. >>>They are stamped on the >>>face, but you can't see it because of the heat sink and fan. >> >>When you buy the _chip_, it generally does not come with a heat sink >>and fan. >> >When I state that the numbers on the CPU *aren't visible* because of the heat >sink and fan, I expect you to understand that there actually *IS* a heat sink >and fan. :-)) The way you put it sounded as if this is intentionally hidden from the user, which is certainly not true. This is like saying you can't tell what harddisk you have because it's mounted inside the case and you can't see it from the outside. Silly isn't it? >>>They require excellent air flow for cooling, especially for the "overclocked" >>>CPU's. >> >>If you overclock it, then you get to keep the pieces if it breaks. > >Yes, they do warn you, they also tell you how much you can overclock the cpu by, >and include (in my case) a program specifically to help you do it. Whether this >is "overclocking" or merely a further tighening of performance parameters >relative to the CPU, I'll leave to others. They don't guarantee it will work, whereas they do in the non-overclocked case. Big difference for non-technical people. Can you imagine buying a 2000Mhz Athlon 'but we don't guarantee it'll work' ? -- GCP
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