Over clocking wonders

[Andrew Pratt]

he he just wanted to tell you guys about my new little wonder chip... yup that's my celeron 667 chip running at a 1 gig hz

[JonMarsh]

And to think at one time Intel couldn't build 1 GHz PIII's to save their life...


AMD's got some surprising parts with there newest process update, production code prefix "AXIA"; 900 MHz and 1 GHz parts hit 1.4GHz easily.

So who at the forum is going to be the first to 2 GHz? I haven't overclocked in ages, so it's unlikely to be me...

BTW, I read a very interesting article about PIII's versus PIV and memory bus bandwidth- seems like Intel made some very odd decisions with the PIV; in one presentation, they showed data that demonstrated how a PIV was using about three times the memory bandwidth on this one special benchmark (known for exercising the memory system), and that was part of their explanation for why RAMBUST memory was a "good thing".
What Intel omitted pointing out, which this analyst did note, was that the PIV wasn't actually running the benchmark even 10% faster...
But what the hey, it sure did generate some bus activity!

Hope everyone's had a happy weekend- I've been in the office/lab, doing the wires and sparks thing for my employer.

Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Bing Fung]

That's rockin Andrew!

Jon, you are right on the AXIA chip

This is a shot of my chip


It has a factory unlocked multiplier and I had it up to 1463 MHz witha GlobalWin FOP38 CPU cooler. The 7000 RPM Delta Black label fan was just too loud to be bearable, so I exchanged the fan with a Y&S Tech 5000 RPM fan. Unfortunetly I can only run at 1400MHz before tripping the CPU overtemp Alarm (set @ 50C). I have purchased a bigger 90mm 55CFM Sanyo Denke fan that only turns at 2000 RPM. Tests show this should bring it back to Delta Black Label performace with out the jet engine whine...


Here is a stock cooler with the 60 mm Delta Black label 7000 RPM / 38 CFM fan (FOP38) actually it's a WBK 38 but I just need to illustrate the fan size.




Here is an assembled cooler with the 90mm Sanyo Denke 2000 RPM /55CFM fan (FOP 55)




Bing

[Andrew Pratt]

Wow Bing thats a sweet looking cooler!

[KennyG]

Doesn't this overclocking make the CPU unstable?
Are there any advantages to overclocking other than saving the price of a new CPU?

[Bing Fung]

Thanks Andrew, I hope it fits :E

Kenny, you are right on both accounts. An added benefit of OC'ing is, if done like Andrew's system were the front side bus is increased from 66Mhz to 100MHz (OC'ed,) it overclocks every component that interfaces with the BUS (everything) so the Harddrive, memory, graphics card is all OC'ed as well. This yields a very fast system but the down side is system instability due to the various components, so the key is to raise the FSB until the system becomes unstable, and then back it down a notch. Increasing core voltage will increase stability as well, but it also increases heat to the CPU. One main requirement to OC'ing is good cooling for the CPU and other components.

Another way to OC is to change the multiplier factor on the CPU, this is the most stable way to go, unfortunatly, most CPU's are locked and prevents this type of OC to be performed.

Ontop of all that, it's just plain fun, I liken it to the glory days of Hot Rodding cars, sure you can run things stock, but there is a special feeling of pride when your system is OC'ed and tweaked to yield the best performance available for the given equipment. It's not so much to make the applications marginally faster (OK it is) but rather just to do it




Bing

[Andrew Pratt]

Kenny remember that OCing is dependant upon the chip in quesiton. In my case the celeron 667 is the same chip as the real PIII's sans the extra L2 cache. This flavor of chip is rated upto around 1 gig so there's really nothing different about a 667 celeron and a 1 gig PIII (other then the PIII's larger cache memory) With that in mind the only thing that limits reaching the maximum of the design is the locked multiplier and heat. Now the CPU's multiplier times the Front Side Bus (FSB) = the clock speed so on my chip the multiplier is locked it at 10 so in order to hit 1G I had to set the FSB to 100. Now an FSB of 100 really isn't anthing to fancy given that all PIII's run at either 100 or 133 depending on the model so thats not a big deal. Now on the other celeron chips Intel sets the multiplier higher or lower to get the speed they desire. So if we take a 733 celeron its multiplier is locked in at 11. The problem here is that in order to hit 1000 we'd have to turn up the FSB to 90...sounds good but they our FSB isn't running as quick as it should (100) but if we tried to increase the FSB any higher and it likely wouldn't be stable since 1 g is about as high as you can get with the current PIII/celeron die. So to make a short story longer every now and then Intel releases a chip with a multiplier that is perfect for maximizing the potential out of the chip since the multiplier is at the right spot for easy boosting without stressing the system to much. Now thats not to say you can't increase the FSB higher then 100 but chances are it might not be as stable.

all that said clock speed isn't the be all and end all of PC power but it sure is fun

As an aside AMD chips have the advantage that its easy to modify the chip so that you can change the multiplier and the FSB...this gives you a lot more options for OCing.

[JonMarsh]

Some of us weenies here like to build systems with *small" fans so that the PC doesn't drown out the movie soundtrack playback! I know, I know, if you stick to just action movies, stay away from teh chick flicks, shouldn't be a problem.

Well, I'm so retro that the last PC I built for my CLIO test card is actually using a just purchased ASUS CUBX motherboard (try to find an MB these days with an ISA slot!), with a 733 PIII underclocked to 550 MHz, 'cause the BX chipset doesn't run over 100 MHz FSB normally! 'Course, that puppy stays real cool, now, sure doesn't break a sweat booting up.

For the CLIO board, it runs (gasp!) DOS! Well, actually not, it's just a DOS task under 98SE. And I here a Windows version of CLIO will be out soon- bet it doesn't run under NT, WIN2K, or XP! Which means it will be obsolete even before it ships. Unless they write a proper NT compatible VXD.




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Andrew Pratt]

interesting stratagy Jon...underclocking...who da thunk it

[JonMarsh]

Yeah, Andrew, you have to be a little weird or a bit of a prevert to do something like underclocking more or less on purpose (well, ya see, it's pretty hard to find PIII's with a 100 MHz FSB for some time now).

But you know, with a GeForce MX card, an ATA100 HD (built in ATA100 controller on the CUBX) that little puppy runs all my CAD programs pretty nicely- so nicely it's been in the work lab/office the last three months, since the silly controller hasn't approved an upgrade to my 5 year old Pentium Pro at work yet- been working on that since December. Oh yes, it's grand working for a big time semiconductor company. :r:

-Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Andrew Pratt]

What are you doing with CAD?