Author: Jeremiah Penery
Date: 22:55:57 02/20/03
Go up one level in this thread
On February 21, 2003 at 00:30:07, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On February 20, 2003 at 18:55:41, Jeremiah Penery wrote: > >>On February 20, 2003 at 11:42:49, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >>>On February 20, 2003 at 09:53:28, Jeremiah Penery wrote: >>> >>>>Intel has demoed chips that run far above the currently shipping 3.06GHz. Why >>>>do you suppose they haven't released them? _That_ is "business". If Intel >>>>releases a 5GHz chip tomorrow, they'd sure knock everyone else out of the >>>>performance race, but they would lose a TON of money relative to the current >>>>business model. >>> >>> >>>That is _not_ the same idea. The idea that a vendor purposefully underclocks a >>>chip >>>is ridiculous. The idea that they don't release the next generation at a faster >>>clock rate >>>until the current supply of slower chips is exhausted is not contradictory at >>>all. Two >>>totally different business practices, one of which makes economic sense, the >>>other makes >>>zero sense. >> >>I've done some reading today, and this is what I've found out. Some of it might >>not be 100% correct, but I believe it to be close. >> >>In the past, when a microprocessor was designed, they found the theoretical >>circuit limit and removed something like 20%. That was about the limit of what >>would be sold, to be completely certain about stability. Nowadays, with current >>50m+ transistor CPUs, the padding has been increased somewhat. Though, when a >>core is reaching to the end of its useful lifetime, it surely eats into that >>'padding'. >> >>Overclocking a 2GHz Willamette P4 is probably not a bright idea. The core is at >>the end of its lifetime, and there is very little headroom for it. But there's >>no reason that overclocking a 2GHz Northwood shouldn't be safe, since Intel has >>already released 3GHz versions with an identical core. I'm not suggesting you >>should be able to get 3GHz out of the 2GHz part, but that doesn't mean it can't >>be overclocked at all. > > >Yes, but nobody cares about overclocking 2ghz parts when 3ghz parts are It's actually a bigger segment of the overclocking population who does something like this. The reason is that you can buy 2GHz chips very cheaply now, and they overclock very well. So, for $100(?) you get a 2GHz chip that reliably clocks to 2.5GHz, instead of spending $200(?) on the 2.5GHz chip in the first place. >available. The issue is "is it safe to overclock the latest 3ghz parts" I don't think that's the issue here at all. If it were, I'd agree with you to a point. >and there I say "no". If you notice, the overclocking here is mainly about >people taking the latest parts and running them beyond their specs... I've already said that insane overclocking is not a good idea. But you're giving a summary dismissal of ALL overclocking as an absolutely unsafe activity, which it isn't.
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