Intel's Anti-Overclocking Technology Simplified 334
John Thorensen writes "Found a fantastic article on Intel's recent Anti-Overclocking patent at Fastsilicon.com. Worth the read, as it also explains some of the technical and ethical issues of overclocking. Good to see that some tech journalists can still write material understandable by an average person."
Lies (Score:3, Funny)
Overclocking a violation of the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
(yes, I forgot my password here.. again lol)
-Honestman
Re:Overclocking a violation of the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
Tune your car to get better mileage, go to jail for not buying a car with better gas mileage.
Seriously though, it's going to happen.
Re:Overclocking a violation of the DMCA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Overclocking a violation of the DMCA (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds depressingly familiar... In the UK, until around 1984, it was illegal to obtain telephone service from anyone other than the (government owned) British Telecom (Kingston Communications in Hull) - governments don't like competition! It still is illegal not to subscribe to the state TV company, if you own a TV: you're free to subscribe to other channels as well, but you have to subscribe to the BBC as well - even if you're in a transmission blackspot and don't receive it! For that matter, until not that many years ago, there were still state monopolies or near-monopolies on everything from milk to steel - and you even had a limit on how much money you could take with you on holiday. Of course, in these days of credit cards, that kind of control would be almost impossible to maintain effectively, but back when moving money meant taking cash or travellers' checks, it was much easier.
It's always been a reflex of such governments: if "your side" is losing in a market, instead of competing, just tax, restrict or outright prohibit the competitors. In the UK, taxis, pubs (bars) and farm production are all subject to quotas and often price-fixing - no competition allowed! I'm all in favor of proper regulation - food safety, roadworthy taxis driven by non-axe-murderers and non-toxic drinks - but when the government tries to push prices up artificially, or ban competition to bow to political lobbying from taxi-drivers, farmers or bar owners, it's gone WAAAAAAAAY too far. Who can actually say, honestly, that there can be too much choice for our own good?
civil disobediance? (Score:5, Interesting)
Preventing overclocking is just corportate bs. Remember the liminal messaging of Brave New World, "I'm tired of old things. I want new things. If it's broken, don't fix it. Throw old things away."
In all honesty, people probably break as many chips as they enhance and overclocking helps profits for chip makers. Anyways, you can use this [osnippets.org] code, compared against the time/date clock to determine if a chip is overclocked. Software/electronic patents are a bunch of bullcrap for things like this because it's so damn simple to recreate the effect.
Re:civil disobediance? (Score:3, Funny)
I started doing this, but had to stop after my overclocked toaster burned down my house.
Re:civil disobediance? (Score:3, Insightful)
They have every right to limit how their product is used, just has you have every right to not buy it.
Re:civil disobediance? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe everything should be licensed and nothing sold. Maybe every "manufacturer" should tell you everything you shouldn't do with their product and then warn you in the warranty that they're claiming "no fitness for a particular use or purpose."
Maybe when your car is leased, all your consumer products are licensed, your food is consumed on the spot at restaurants and your clothes are bought on credit you will really be free. You will be living in the very model of freedom for all the world to see. God bless America.
TW
Re:Overclocking a violation of the DMCA (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, I haven't overclocked since back in the old days when it was useful (clocking up a chip already equiv to 1.8Ghz isn't really useful) - but back then all it required was some knowledge of the hardware, good cooling, and a few selective jumper changes. What else do you need nowadays? If I have to buy special stuff to overclock, why not just spend the cash on a better CPU anyhow?
Heat does not determine the speed limit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Overclocking a violation of the DMCA (Score:2)
All I could think of, would be maybe some sort of real-time high-speed "quiz" that your computer has to take, where it is connected over a low-latency link to another computer. Other computer gives you a function parameter, and your computer has to eval some expensive func
Re:Overclocking a violation of the DMCA (Score:4, Insightful)
Beware - some
Ethical issues of overclocking - (Score:4, Funny)
Not so fast (Score:5, Funny)
Remote server down or not responding.
Looks like Fastsilicon.com isn't that fast
Re:Not so fast (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Not so fast (Score:5, Funny)
What good is a smart bomb and a dumb president??
Anti-overclocking (Score:3, Funny)
intels new anti overclocking technology ... (Score:5, Funny)
Ethics of Overclocking? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ethics of Overclocking? (Score:2, Insightful)
(Unless the warranty does not forbid overclocking, of course.)
Re:Ethics of Overclocking? (Score:5, Informative)
Otherwise, I agree with you.
Re:Ethics of Overclocking? (Score:2)
Same argument could be used about aftermarket car modifications, violation of warranty, could damage it self, blow up.
We don't need anyone protecting us, aftermarket OC products are "Use at your own risk
Re:Ethics of Overclocking? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, if a non-overclocked Intel chip malfunctions and wipes out the data on my machine, I can file a complaint against Intel and get compensation?
Riiiight.
Re:Ethics of Overclocking? (Score:3, Interesting)
so basically (Score:3, Informative)
Son! I was just playing online scrabble and chatting on AOL when my computer started to melt! Did I break the internet???
There's a more lucrative strategy (Score:2)
I doubt the losses from enthusiast overclocking are causing enough pain to Intel that they'd come up with new technology (at R&D expense) to fight it. Besides, if they wanted, they could even make some money partnering up with a 3rd party and selling unlocked procs and high-performance cooling with no warranty.
Ethical issues? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ethical issues? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ethical issues? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ethical issues? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's unethical for grey/black market vendors to overclock a slower processor, then sell it at premium prices. Believe me, this happens a lot, and is a big problem for processor manufacturers.
Re:Ethical issues? (Score:2)
Re:Ethical issues? (Score:2)
If you own a piece of hardware, sitting in your hand, then you own it, not some subset of its functionality deemed 'acceptable' by its manufacturer.
This is true. However, running a part out of manufacturer spec and then using the warranty is also fraudulent.
Who will speak for the chips? (Score:5, Funny)
And those people who post a link to slashdot without providing a mirror or cache just so they can watch some innocent, defenseless server get turned into a smoking carbon shell are no better.
You know, IC's and other silicon-die based products have rights as well.
This has been a PSA from FETS (Fanatics for the Ethical Treatment of Silicon)
Re:Ethical issues? (Score:2)
Re:Ethical issues? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ethical issues? (Score:2)
Re:Ethical issues? (Score:3, Interesting)
Further simplification (Score:4, Funny)
Here's a summary of Intel's new anti-overclocking technology, simplified even further:
1. Intel distributes chips to the market that prevent overclocking.
2. Geeks of the world unite and, in a great moment of solidarity, say, "Screw you, Intel," and start using AMD and other non-intel technology.
3. Intel looses a teeny tiny piece of their market share.
Re:Further simplification (Score:3, Insightful)
What they're trying to stop are companies who buy cheaper CPUs then overclock them and sell them as the higher rated part. I haven't heard a whole lot about this in the US, but I imagine it's a lot more common in other countries where the chan
How about overclocking detection? (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I'd like to be able to underclock better so it would be easier to built a really quiet PC. Although there are a few articles about it, silent PCs are an underserved area of the market.
Re:How about overclocking detection? (Score:2)
Overvoltage detecting. (Score:2)
-Badly attached coolers. AMD is notorious for this.
-Over voltage. If youput a higher voltage to the proc it is more likely to overclock. To high and it start to wear down. Also known as: nothwood sudden death syndrom. (maybe intel aready does this)
-failing cooler fans. Makes the processor run too hot. It will not burn immediatly with a attached cooler, but it not good for the lifetime.
And then there is alwyas static electricity t
join us next week on slashdot when... (Score:5, Funny)
THANK GOD! (Score:3, Funny)
YOU RULE INTEL!
Re:THANK GOD! (Score:2)
Intel's chips ship overclocked just under the breaking point...they even increase the voltage a little.
I like my AMD.
Tech Journalism (Score:4, Insightful)
layperson is easy. Doing that while avoiding insipidity and
simplification to the point of being misleading.... ummm....
priceless?
Embedding an oscillator (Score:5, Insightful)
Since most CPUs internally multiply their clock (you don't feed a 3.0 GHz P4 a 3.0 GHz clock, you feed it a much slower clock and it multiplies it up), why then don't manufacturer's just use an embedded clock and do away with all this?
Simple - it is very hard to have an accurate clock embedded in the CPU. External clocks can use a quartz crystal to vibrate and make the clock - an embedded oscillator would have to use an on-chip delay line or RC network, which will drift over time, temperature, and voltage.
So all they can do with a system like this is catch you if you are overclocking by a fairly large amount - were they to try to trap you at a 10% overclock they would have false trips due to process variation.
To extend the analogy the article used: you will get a speeding ticket if you are going 20 over the speed limit. Keep it less than 10 over and you will be fine.
NOTE: this is not advice condoning overclocking or speeding! This is just an analysis of the technology involved.
Re:Embedding an oscillator (Score:2)
Will the quartz drift with heat?
Remember Intel and PPro with two chips in one package. Why not here? Then it is single unchangable thing.
Re:Embedding an oscillator (Score:2)
a) a quartz crystal is HUGE compared to the scale of devices that go into a CPU.
b) The quartz crystal needs an open area to vibrate in, again taking up a relatively large volume within the chip.
c) putting multiple "things" in the chip housing is expensive - hence why Intel went away from doing that as fast as they could.
Re:Embedding an oscillator (Score:2, Interesting)
Yet another reason they don't do this is because they tend to use the exact same die for variants on the processor speed. If an embedded clock was introduced here, then they'd have to use different dies for each of the different speeds. Basically the only difference betwee
Re:Embedding an oscillator (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Embedding an oscillator (Score:2)
However, all my previous statement stand as to the impacts of this technique.
ethical? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:ethical? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ethical issues (Score:3, Insightful)
If this has been a problem, I agree with Intel that it's important to restrict overclocking to protect, not limit, the consumer.
If vendors are only rarely (or never) overclocking a CPU and selling it for for more then I think that while it's probably not a wise business decision by Intel to implement such a technology just to limit consumers, it is Intel's right as the manufacturer and there is nothing ethically wrong with it. There is still competition and the market will speak for itself.
No one is forcing you to buy Intel products after all.
Intel does overclocking (Score:2)
It's the DOLLAR divide latch (Score:3, Insightful)
All chips are baked to a manufacturing tolerance that allows them to run at any given speed. Each new batch is tested and if more than some number predictably run at a given speed then that is what they are rated. As their manufacturing process imporves with each turn of the Deeming crank then the rated speed goes up. But when you push more power through the chip to make it run faster it superceeds it's own manufacturing tolerances. It would be like putting a 767 in transonic dive. It might hold together but Boeing thinks that's pretty much your issue.
But Intel doesn't make airplanes they make CPUs and their revenue comes from locking you into THEIR upgrade path. Break that relationship and they will hose you.
Imagine that, YOU are paying the embedded costs for them to find a clever way to stop YOU from speeding up YOUR chip.
Re:It's the DOLLAR divide latch (Score:2)
It's called FIGHTING BACK against FRAUDULENT VENDORS. Intel doesn't care one way or another about YOU speeding up a chip for your own purposes, but they have to sell the same chips to vendors and hobbyists alike.
You are a TWIT. GROW up. AND STOP SHOUTING.
The best way to overclock an Intel.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The best way to overclock an Intel.. (Score:2)
The article is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, I won't go into anymore detail here, because I explain the patent and its implications for overclocking in the following Ars news post:
http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/1048630320.
Re:The article is wrong (Score:3, Informative)
The article has a more fundamental flaw: the author thinks that the limit on a processor's speed is determined by heat. It's not, at least, not directly. The limit is caused by gate and wire delays: values computed by combinational logic in one bus cycle must reach a stable value by the next bus cycle (let's ignore multicycle paths for now, but the concept is the same). Because of process variations, different versions of the same chip may have different critical delay. Intel (or AMD) will only sell a
Phew that was close! Thanks Intel! (Score:4, Insightful)
I have an older technology that fits nicely alongside Intels anti-overclocking technology, it's proprietary and only works with geeks, OCers and effects all systems we build, its called anti-Intel-purchasing technology and I suggest we all use it religiously.
Why don't they just... (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure, it's facist, but it seems cheaper and a bit simpler.
It's not worth overclocking (Score:2, Insightful)
Spend money working on other bottlenecks, such as more ram, a better graphics card and faster hard drives.
The anti overclocking mechanisms are there to stop people from accidentaly setting the wrong settings in the bios and therefore voiding the
Asus.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Asus.... (Score:2)
Ethics (Score:2, Interesting)
I think if the only point of this was preventing vendor overclock it could be done much easier: Make the CPU tell the motherboard what frequency it was supposed to run at. Then when you start the computer the BIOS would perform a simple
Re:Ethics (Score:3, Interesting)
Fixes that will actually be hard to get around have to be done in hardware.
heres a satisfactory compromise (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Dumb question.... aren't you using AMD anyway? (Score:3, Interesting)
But of the overclockers out there, those of you that have built the ultimate gaming machines, etc....
Aren't you using AMD?
I admit, every PC I own has an intel processor.... and I haven't overclocked a PC in, oh, 10 years or so - the last time I "built" my own machine (I got tired of doing it, I just buy them off the shelf now)
I was kind of under the impression that most people who are building their own machines these days, and intend to overclock, use AMD processors anyway.
Is that not the case? It's a genuine question, out of curiosity, how many of you are actually overclocking Intel vs AMD?
Can someone answer this? (Score:2, Interesting)
If they can generate this "comparison pulse" inside the chip without relying on the main board's clock signal, why can't they just use that to run the chip? Why bother with using the external source and doing a whole comparison operation?
Re:Can someone answer this? (Score:3, Interesting)
Plus, if you read the patent (and I did), they are talking about using a 32.768 kHz reference from the RTC. This is a _lot_ easier to build than a stable ring-oscillator at 200.000MHz +/- 200ppm (or whatever the current reference spec is these days). The high-speed ones are nearly impossible across the range of operating points.
As the power supply voltage drifts around Vdd (either 1.8, 1.5 or 1.3V thes
I can't overclock my Intel CPU? (Score:2)
(Okay, it was a lame joke about "The Pentium 4 makes the web go faster...get off my back!)
Fastsilicon.com (Score:4, Informative)
heat or capacitance? (Score:2)
(For those who have forgotten physics 101: when you have two conductors separated by an insulation layer, you have a capacitor, the capacity of which depends on the surface and the thickness of the layer. In current microprocessors, the distances are so small that bad etching may produce parasitic capacitances. Those limit the speed.)
Re:heat or capacitance? (Score:3, Interesting)
As technology shrinks (0.25um -> 0.18um -> 0.13um, etc), the gate delay essentially goes to 0 (not exactly, but I'll simplify). The wire delay keeps getting lar
Content Schmontent (Score:2)
This should not be Patentable (Score:2)
I though you couldn't patent a technique if it was determined that someone without privleged knowledge could come up with a similiar design ??!! I think the Intel
Inaccuracies of the article (Score:4, Insightful)
That is not really accurate. While it is true that power and clock speed are approxmately linearly related (double the clock speed, double the heat output), the way the article explains the max speed is wrong. This implies that if you took a 2ghz P4 and clocked it at 2.4ghz, it would run hotter than a "real" 2.4ghz P4. This is not the case. All P4s will put out the same amount of heat at a given clock speed.
The actual reason that chips clock at different speeds has to do with precision of manufacture. I'm not really a car person, but I would imagine that better quality parts would let an engine go faster. If a spark plug has a problem, you might get misfires at higher RPMs (?). When a CPU is made, sometimes some of the wires are too thin, and because of the higher resistance it takes more time for enough charge to flow through the wire to get a 1 to change to a 0 (or vice versa). Now, you cannot clock it as fast or the CPU will produce erroneous results.
Another possible defect would be two wires ending up too close to each other. The faster a wire changes voltage, the more interference it creates in wires nearby. With the two wires closer than expected, they might start to experience "crosstalk", where the signal on one of the wires is affected by the other wire. At lower speeds, crosstalk is less of a problem.
There are many more things that cause variations in the max stable speeds of processors, but I won't go into them.
You might next ask, "What about the 'perfect' chips? Why can't they go faster?". The answer to that question is that even the best transistors can only switch so fast, and an electrical signal can only travel so far in a given period of time. When you're working with frequencies in the GHz, light can travel no more than a few feet, and the speed of electricity in wires is much lower.
The processors are then labeled with this clock speed, and they go out the door with a designation such as, "Pentium 4 - 2.4GHz". In this particular case, Intel has tested the processor and has determined that to run properly, it needs a clock that runs no faster than 2.4 billion times per second
The reason you can overclock is that Intel's tests are brutal. If they sell a processor as 2GHz and someone builds a computer with poor case ventilation and a cheap heatsink and low quality power supply in the sahara desert, the computer needs to be stable. Processors can run faster at lower temperatures (there are some equations describing the effects of temperature on various parts and generally higher temperature slows things down), so in a properly ventilated case with a good heatsink (and reliable power supply), the processor can operate reliably at higher-than-rated speeds.
It is important to note that just increasing the clock speed won't have as drastic of an effect on processor lifetime as many people say. What WILL have serious effects, though, is increasing the voltage. Why do overclockers like to raise the core voltage? More voltage means more current and stronger signals. In the thin wire scenario above, more voltage and more current means that even with the higher resistance,
The ethics of overclocking.... (Score:3, Insightful)
From The Article (Score:3, Insightful)
The future: we'll charge you for the MHz (Score:3, Insightful)
"only a matter of time" until this is cracked? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, the issue here isn't whether O/C'ing is still possible, it's whether it's worth it. If you're more likely to destroy the CPU (while trying to "unlock" it, or otherwise) than you are to make it run faster, it doesn't matter what's theoretically possible.
Intel should sic the lawyer on people who sell relabeled CPUs instead of doing annoying shit like this. Buying a 3GHz CPU means you're buying a piece of silicon, and a guarantee that it will work right at 3GHz. All bets are off if you take it beyond that; The guarantee doesn't apply, but it's still your piece of silicon. Not being able to try it at higher speeds makes it less valuable. I hope, as the article suggested, that any CPUs incorporating this are noticeably cheaper than they would otherwise be. I really like stable computers, so I only overclock my older computers that need to feel a bit faster
Re:404 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:404 (Score:3, Informative)
He was saying that he could not read the comments (here) so that it was forcing people (slashdot reader) to read the linked article.
Re:Article 2 (Score:2, Informative)
The abstract of the Intel patent reads as follows:
An over-clock deterrent mechanism of a chipset which comprises an over-clock detection circuit for detecting over-clocking of a system (processor) clock signal based on comparison of ratio of the system (processor) clock signal which is likely to be over-clocked and a fixed, stable reference clock signal which is highly unlikely to be over-clocked, and an over-clock prevention (thwarting) circuit for deterring such an over-clocking by either
Re:Article 3 (Score:2, Informative)
Having solved the first part of the clock-limiting issue, the Intel patent further describes ways to act upon the fact that the processor is overclocked. There are two methods that are described to thwart overclocking once it is detected. The first method simply shuts off power to the processor when an illegal clock speed is detected. This is the equivalent of being thrown in jail: "Do not pass go, do not collect $200". When the power is removed from the processor, the only computing
Re:Article 3 (Score:2)
The solution, of course, is to keep the temperature in the "safe" range at the higher clock speed.
Sounds like a pretty fair tradeoff, all things considering.
Re:Article 3 (Score:2)
People still do this? I havn't heard of anyone buying an overclocked cpu in ages. Even when I did hear about it last (back in Penium II days), it was only from the most shady of merchant, usually the kind that hung out in computer trade shows. Have there been any recent reported cases of this happening?
Re:Article 3 (Score:2)
Anyone have any numbers for this?
I doubt this has any real impact on why they would use clock locking. I would guess that yields are getting better and they would like to finish a standard chip off with a clock of choice based on market demands. Besides, it is in the CPU manufactors best in
Too Much Effort, could satisfy everyone: (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, to implement this, they're including a reference clock on the chip, which means that processors of different (marketed) speeds will have to be made with a different process (which has maybe been true for a long time, but I was lead to believe that, eg in the pIII days, the wafers that failed 1Ghz just got sold as 833MHz, etc).
So instead of doing all these calculations to decide if you're "speeding," and then doing even *more* calculations to penalize you, why don't they just expose this reference clock speed in a special interrupt call? And maybe even the relation to the operating speed (eg, "you are overclocked by 10%")? Then, they could release an app that would tell you how fast your computer was SUPPOSED to be, and how fast it IS.
Then, OC'ers could have their cake, and no one else could be taken advantage of by unscrupulous OEMs who overclock to bump up their margins. I concede the point that "most average people will never check anyway," but just having the information *available* should protect Intel from liability, which seems to be the essential idea. Plus, the threat of having the practice exposed at any time should stop at least some of the overclock-resellers.
Much easier solution (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Much easier solution (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree so far.
Their real concern is limiting you to a set level of performance that you pay for.
Au contraire: their real concern is crooked system builders scratching the "2 GHz" off the chip, scribbling in "2.4 GHz", slapping a big heat sink on, and pocketing the difference, leaving Joe Sixpack none the wiser. Joe Sixpack won't know to run a sp
Re:I AGREE!! (Score:2)
Re:Give us a way to turn it off (Score:4, Insightful)
they could always team up with the BIOS maker (just like for the temperature logic)
And just write a big fat: "THIS CPU IS MEANT TO RUN AT X SPEED AND IS CURRENTLY RUNNING AT Y SPEED. YOUR GARANTY MAY BE VOID..."
Re:Give us a way to turn it off (Score:3, Funny)
On the cheap motherboards, the bios messages would probably look just about like that. For more, visit engrish.com [engrish.com].
Re:Prevention of fraud or just more control. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because then the unscrupulous would just hack that message out of the BIOS.