Pushing P4 to 5.25GHz with Liquid Nitrogen

SkywalkerOS8 writes "The folks at Tom's Hardware have an article up about their attempt to overclock a Pentium 4 over 5 GHz using liquid nitrogen as cooling. A DivX video is available along with pictures of the custom copper cooling head they made."

good ole days

[fuck_this_shit]

reading things like these I'm reminded of the good old days where all you had to do was getting two 333MHz celerons, overclock them to 500MHz by upping the FSB, some socket-to-slot adaptors and *baddabing* you had a total of 1GHz for a bargain while using normals coolers. Was that only 3 or 4 years ago? *sigh*

Direct sampling 2.4GHz?

[femto]

I would like to see the same thing done with an Analog-to-Digital converter. It would be fun to be able to direct sample a 2.4GHz WLAN signal!

Like trying to overclock a VW

[xC0000005]

This is a amusing article, but kind of misses the point. So one problem with running processors faster is that they get too hot and we can get around that by cooling it with liquid nitrogen. Cool, but CPU heat is just one design element contributing to the effective speed of the computer.

This is like saying that I should cool my VW with liquid nitrogen so that I can run the engine faster. Sure, I'll pick up some speed, but honestly there are lots of other factors preventing my VW from running at a more productive speed than how fast I can get the engine spinning. The shape (like the bus on a PC), the steering (peripherals), and mostly that the cops don't appreciate me going 328mph through the school zone.

Re:Eschew Obfuscation

[deadsaijinx*]

Silly rabbit, NO one worth their weight in Fava beans runs an app like maya on an overclocked machine. Nasty artifacts, much more effecient to span the render of MULTIPLE proccessors

I've done better than that!

[NeoThermic]

Yes, I got 6.58Ghz out of my 1.2Ghz Intel Celeron. Image1 [geocities.com]

Its a true screenshot. What isn't true is the actual clock... I ran some ASM that had a typo in it, and it somehow accelerated the windows timer, thus making apps see my CPU as something faster.

Even more amazing is what 3D mark 03 sees. Yes, to that program, I have a 60.1Ghz processor (not a typo)

Image 2 [geocities.com]

And I didn't even have to use any more cooling than the laptops normal fan.

Any Questions? ;)

NeoThermic

Re:Do they really need liquid nitrogen?

[Spam.B.gone]

although -190 Celcius is indeed somewhat on the chilly side, I think N2 would be a sound choise: You need something with a boiling point somewhere below 0 celcius (so you have a nice temperature gradient to work with) and you don't want to worry about the environment too much when your liquid boils away. N2 fits, it is easily available and has the bonus benefit that it will nicely extinguish the small fires where the graphics card is trying to keep up with the CPU

Re:good ole days

[airjrdn]

Yeah, I've got a celeron 566 that's been running at 933 since the beginning of the 1Ghz days.

They just don't make 'em like they used to. :)

Re:Talk about journalistic integrity!

[Selecter]

Bingo - thats the reason I dont go there anymore. They are Intel fanboyz from way back and by experience I come to expect nothing but bias from them. Good catch.

Re:Talk about journalistic integrity!

[richcoder]

I've never noticed the bias towards Intel from THG until your post. I went through all of the processor summaries from the past 2 years and your right! They constantly praise Intel and never pass up the oportunity to take stabs at AMD.

Also, notice that Intel chips get plenty of there own articles while AMD is always placed in a comparison article that is bent toward Intel everytime.

Re:I've done better than that!

[NeoThermic]

Yes, now we are probibaly going to slashdot me, but wtf, I'm going to bed, so it shouldn't affect me much.

Here are the Images again:

6.58Ghz [82.34.77.49]

60.1Ghz [82.34.77.49]

NeoThermic

Re:Overclocking is stupid--No, make that "insane"

[bogie]

"Overclocking is a fantasy of the DIY tinkerer "beating" the experts"

Whoah, time to lay off the meds. What do you care if someone wants to get all they can out of a product they bought?

Your post is a fine foil to dissuade someone from spending $500-$100 on OC'ing equipment. It fails miserably to describe why its bad for the average $25 heatsink buying OC'er. Hell the average Intel overclocker usually just uses the stock HSF. Do you really think you have a case when its so easy to take for example a P4 1.8 and overclock it to 2.4 with no extra money and no ill effects?

Your right overclocked computer can be unreliable, but that's why benchmark programs exist. If you can save $50-$75 by buying the lower end model and speeding it up what's wrong with that? I also don't really think your entitled to make the call whether someone has enough computing power as well. Am I allowed to tell you that you only need a '83 Yugo because YOU don't need anything more than 80hp?

These posts against overclocking never hold up and I don't know why you thought yours would.

Re:Talk about journalistic integrity!

[StarCat76]

Given the history of THG and their decidedly negative (some might say Intel-funded) view of the Athlon 64 chips

Have you even read the benchmarks THG between the P4 and the Athlon XP 64/64 FX they did after it was released? They show how well the Athlon 64 chips do against the higher-clocked P4's, and consistenly recommend AMD's as more bang for your buck. But no, you heard from someome on /. that THG is biased against AMD, so it must be such.

So how fast will it play QUAKE?

[mnmn]

I wonder if you can attach quad monitors, quad mice and keyboards, and have a lanparty on once CPU. I know the radeon 9800 can go that far and already does miltiple monitors, I know of X projects to use multiple USB mice simultaneously and possibly multiple USB keyboards too.

hmmmmmmmmmm`

Re:Direct sampling 2.4GHz?

[Dolphinzilla]

Here is an ADC (dual actually) and an FPGA to do the decoding for you :-) you still need to mix down the 2.4 GHz but that is pretty easy and inexpensive - this one is fast enough that if you were nuts enough you could create your own software radio with it (its a nice card with good VHDL support)
Benadda dual AD DA card [nallatech.com]
And I agree with you it is a cool idea !

Pure FUD

[crimson30]

Have you even read the benchmarks THG between the P4 and the Athlon XP 64/64 FX they did after it was released? They show how well the Athlon 64 chips do against the higher-clocked P4's, and consistenly recommend AMD's as more bang for your buck.

Are you talking about this article?: AMD's Athlon 64 Has Arrived: the Athlon 64 FX and Athlon 64 (and Intel's P4 Extreme) Reviewed [tomshardware.com]

First, there's no mention of "more bang for your buck" in said article.

And while they do "show how well the Athlon 64 chips do against the higher-clocked P4's", they summarize it as such:

"Summary: The P4 3.2 EE wins 32 times, the Athlon 64 FX-51 15 times - an uncertain 64-bit future for AMD"

It reads like they're heralding AMD's demise!