Athlon 64 In-depth Overclocking Guide 193
jmke writes "Everything you ever wanted to know about Athlon 64 overclocking, and then some. If you are confused about HTT, LDT, memory dividers and relationship between these settings, then read on. This in-depth overclocking guide will show you how to get the maximum from your brand new Athlon 64 system"
OMG. What kind of.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Would you overclock a Z-Series IBM server? Would you overclock a 20 4-way xeons in a cluster?
Give it a while. Its not like the MOST OF US will need that speed...
Hell, I use a 1 GHz machine and develop on a 500 MHz machine. Yeah, 500 MHz because many users are still stuck on 300's and 450's.
Re:OMG. What kind of.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, of course most wouldn't try to overclock an IBM server or clustered 20 4-way xeons. Why? Most people DO NOT OWN THOSE. That's corporate equipment. People can afford to play with $150 chips at home, and will.
Seriously though (Score:5, Insightful)
Dumb, but at blazing speed! (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course the real laugher is what the overclockers do with their "extra" cycles. Nothing useful, let me assure you. At least I've never seen a claim of utility. Moore's Law has given us cycles out the wazoo, and the overclockers are just silly fools, like the guy in the cheese shop with no cheese.
You want to improve the world? Write better software. God knows there is VAST room for real improvements there, and no help from Moore's Law.
Re:OMG. What kind of.... (Score:4, Insightful)
$482 Athlon 64 4000+ 90nm Rev
$478 Athlon 64 4000
$359 Athlon 64 3800
$369 Athlon 64 3800 512K 90nm Rev E
$334 Athlon 64 3700+ 90nm Rev
$282 Athlon 64 3700
$249 Athlon 64 3500
$249 Athlon 64 3500 939pin
$250 Athlon 64 3500 90nm 939pin
$272 Athlon 64 3500 512K 90nm Rev E
$174 Athlon 64 3400
$152 Athlon 64 3200
$169 Athlon 64 3200 939pin
$169 Athlon 64 3200 90nm 939pin
(Prices from pricewatch.com)
Not just for gamers... (Score:5, Insightful)
More is never enough. (Score:3, Insightful)
LOL.
The kind of person who, 10 years from now, when he gets his amazing new 200,000 GHz 512 bit processor with a terabyte of RAM, will say, "How do I overclock it?"
Re:OMG. What kind of.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The likelyhood of frying parts is not very high. Before that happens you will get restarts, BSODs etc, telling you that you've messed up the settings. If you do it properly, and test your systems stability with Memtest86, Prime95 and the like, then there is no harm.
I have my Athlon 64 3000+ running at 2.2 gHz up from the stock of 1.8. That's the speed of a 3500+ which at the time of purchase cost $170AU more. Do I need that extra speed? No. Is it handy? Yes. Games run smoother. Compilation is quicker. More research for folding@home is acheived.
Give it a go. It's plain old geeky fun.
Re:Overclocking (Score:5, Insightful)
*Few people get lucky because they need to mark some chips at lower speed than they are truly capable and they keep certain margins on the chip timings to ensure it works.* quite a lot of people "get lucky" as you put it. on a64's you often see 300-400mhz overclocks, that's not much unless you look into the cpu prices and how they hike up at those 300-400mhz. and those run whatever test you want for 24/7.. i got a k6-2 300 that has run at 450mhz for something like 6 years or whatever year they were introduced.
overclocking is not worth it usually when you buy the machine.. but ironically.. INCREASES THE LIFETIME as you can use the chip some time longer to play games etc, comfortably.
Re:why so many people so ignorant towards OC (Score:1, Insightful)
There is an expected statistical distribution in power consumption as a function of speed based upon the design. The distribution of product into marketing(performance) bins is determined by competition, profitability and sales projections for each bin. If you can increase your yield of fast, low power consumption parts, you adjust your price to hit proft maximum sweet spot. Don't foprget that power consumption as a function of performance is a consideration for many customers. If you're a clever company you consider overclockers as part of the market and allow, with caveats such as warranty disclaimer, for sales to this market.
Overclockers do not hurt sales of higher end parts so AMD would be crazy to ever 'fix' the parts to prevent overclocking.
Now what's the tradeoff for overclocker?
He loses warranty.
He pays a little bit more for electricity than he would for a speed specified part.
He gets more performance for his dollar.
I would never overclock my laptop because to me, battery life is more imporrtant.
Re:Dumb, but at blazing speed! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, it fucking well does - that's environmentally irresponsible.
Yes, it would hugely annoy me and I would most definately make a point of it.
Really bad analogy
Re:So many peope talking out of their ***... (Score:2, Insightful)
That is something I never understood. Why would I want to waste a day making my computer work just as good as something i could have bought for $200 more?
Re:OMG. What kind of.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Those more expensive costs eat into your processor savings.