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Intel Hardware

Intel's Anti-Overclocking Technology Simplified 334

Posted by michael from the why-johnny-can't-speed dept.
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."
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Intel's Anti-Overclocking Technology Simplified More

Intel's Anti-Overclocking Technology Simplified

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  • Lies (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mohammed Al-Sahaf ( 665285 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:30PM (#5712653)
    This article is a fabrication. The technology remains complicated as ever. Victory by our glorious forces over the AMD infidels is imminent.

  • Overclocking a violation of the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Honest Man ( 539717 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:31PM (#5712656)
    Beware - soon we will find people who sell overclocking devices going to jail for violating DMCA.

    (yes, I forgot my password here.. again lol)
    -Honestman

    • Re:Overclocking a violation of the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)

      by j3110 ( 193209 ) <samterrell @ g m a i l.com> on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:43PM (#5712759) Homepage
      Because modifying hardware you purchased is stealing. You should buy the better model.

      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.
      • Eventually, with all these profit-guarentee laws, its going to be illegal to purchase a competitor's items.

        • Re:Overclocking a violation of the DMCA (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Cyberdyne ( 104305 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @10:15PM (#5714821) Journal
          Eventually, with all these profit-guarentee laws, its going to be illegal to purchase a competitor's items.

          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)

      by SHEENmaster ( 581283 ) <travis&utk,edu> on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:52PM (#5712810) Homepage Journal
      Let's start overclocking, enhancing, and reverse engineering EVERYTHING to protest these laws.

      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.
      • Let's start overclocking, enhancing, and reverse engineering EVERYTHING to protest these laws.

        I started doing this, but had to stop after my overclocked toaster burned down my house.
      • Preventing overclocking is just corportate bs

        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)

          by Total_Wimp ( 564548 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @08:59PM (#5714613)
          Do you really believe that a product you've purchased should be under the control of the guy who sold it to you? Maybe your car should limit you to the speed limit of the state you bought it in. Maybe women's underwear should have a license forbidding men from wearing them. Maybe when you buy fresh meat it can come with a contract forbidding you from freezing it "to preserve freshness." Maybe Microsoft Press programming books can come with a license prohibiting you from using the knowledge to create competing products.

          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
    • What counts as an overclocking device? A water-cooling kit, liquid nitrogen, perhaps a really good fan/heatsink?

      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?
    • I get sick and tired of all these hardware nerdz acting like they're electrical engineers (which I happen to be). The out of a flop, thru a logic cloud and into the next flop is determined by 1) the output resistance of each logic gate, and 2) the capacitance (load) that is driven. The output resistance of a fet goes up when temperature goes up. This is why cooling your processor allows it run faster. However, there is a limit. No matter how much you cool your proc, it'll never go to 0 resistance. The a
    • I know there are some fellow perverts here who love to twist things, so I say: go for it. The Lexmark guys gave us an inspiring glimpse of some of DMCA's possibilities. Can we do better? How do you make overclocking be circumvention?

      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)

      by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @03:59PM (#5713259)
      Beware - soon we will find people who sell overclocking devices going to jail for violating DMCA.

      Beware - some /. moderators will (+1, Insightful) any comment that contains either or both of the words "overclocking" and/or "DMCA".

    1. Every time you overclock, you make baby Jesus cry.

  • Not so fast (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jaguar777 ( 189036 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:36PM (#5712701) Journal
    Error 502
    Remote server down or not responding.

    Looks like Fastsilicon.com isn't that fast ;)

  • Anti-overclocking (Score:3, Funny)

    by DrWhizBang ( 5333 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:36PM (#5712703) Homepage Journal
    Now if they could incorporate and Anti-AMD-processor -that-is-faster-for-less-money technology, they'd be all set!

  • intels new anti overclocking technology ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Photon01 ( 662761 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:36PM (#5712704)
    1. Detect servers with overclocked processors 2. Post link to slashdot 3. Processor is fried :)

  • Ethics of Overclocking? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:36PM (#5712705)
    Seriously, wtf? Ethics should be something applied to lawyers, doctors, mechanics, etc.. not something that should be brought up when a kid (or adult i guess) is tweeking his hardware. The fact that overclocking voids any warranty should be enough of a precaution by manufacturers.

    • Re:Ethics of Overclocking? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think there point is, if you overclock your processor and it dies, it would be unethical to say "Hey! You gave me a defective CPU!" and get a new one for free.

      (Unless the warranty does not forbid overclocking, of course.)

    • Re:Ethics of Overclocking? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Limburgher ( 523006 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:53PM (#5712819) Homepage Journal
      RTFA. Not the ethics of OC'ing in general i.e. your hardware by you, but the ethics of vendor OC'ing, i.e. your hardware by the sleazebag who's selling you a processor that is A) inviolation of the warranty B) likely to damage itself and c) therefore likely to wipe out your data with no recourse for you.

      Otherwise, I agree with you.

      • RTFA. Not the ethics of OC'ing in general i.e. your hardware by you, but the ethics of vendor OC'ing, i.e. your hardware by the sleazebag who's selling you a processor that is A) inviolation of the warranty B) likely to damage itself and c) therefore likely to wipe out your data with no recourse for you.

        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
      • c) therefore likely to wipe out your data with no recourse for you.

        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.
    • These anti-OC measures are not meant to bug the home tweaker. They are to prevent retailers from OC'ing CPUs and selling them as if they were higher rated CPUs. Apart from the obvious unfairness towards the unsuspecting average customer, it also irritates Intel because of OC'ed CPUs tend have a shorter MTBF. Also Intel has to deal with all these burned out CPUs as they are returned. This ofcourse can have no positive effect on their reputation. Hence these anti OC precautions. I think it's a good thing.

  • so basically (Score:3, Informative)

    by stuph ( 664902 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:36PM (#5712710)
    they're trying to keep power-users from overclocking, justifying it by the fact that some "evil systems builders" buy cheaper processors and overclock them, selling them to YOUR mom unknowingly, who then calls you at 2am when her computer catches on fire from all the heat.
    Son! I was just playing online scrabble and chatting on AOL when my computer started to melt! Did I break the internet???
    • Just make the chips blow out at higher clock rates. Be subtle enough about it (and keep it a secret) and you'll rake in the bucks from tweakers replacing toasted procs.

      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)

    by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:37PM (#5712712)
    What ethical issues are there relating to overclocking? Overclocking a chip, and selling it at a higher speed is already called "fraud". There's nothing ethical or unethical about overclocking. Is redlining your car's engine unethical? Stupid maybe, but that's about it...

    • Re:Ethical issues? (Score:2, Informative)

      by lamber45 ( 658956 )
      If I remember rightly, Intel hasn't said they'll use this for consumer chips yet; all they've done is get a patent on the technology. For all we know, Sun might want to use this first.
    • It's cruelty to processors, that's what it is! Murderer! You fried your CPU!!!

    • Re:Ethical issues? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ilsie ( 227381 )
      It's unethical to overclock your processor, then get it exchanged when it burns out because it was running outside of spec.

      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.
      • This is called fraud, and already unethical and illegal. 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.

        • 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)

      by tunabomber ( 259585 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @03:03PM (#5712880) Homepage
      If overclocking your poor processor to its death is ethical, then so is driving your herd of sheep off a cliff, or nailing your dog's feet to the floor so you can use it as a doorstop.
      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)
    • Well it is not nessarly fraud you say they overclocked a 2.9Ghz CPU to 3.0 GHZ you are getting a 3.0 GHZ Computer. Fraud will be if they sell you a 2.9 GHZ non overvlocked as a 3.0 GHZ. And the company could actually tell you that the CPU is over clocked. But becuase most people dont know or care they just buy it because it is cheaper. The problem with Intell with over clocking is not as much an issue of "I want to sell more of these faster chips" but more of an issue of "People may think our products

    • Re:Ethical issues? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by The_K4 ( 627653 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @03:16PM (#5712952)
      Actyually, having had expeirence with this, it's not "fraud".....and I can explain why. This dealer advertised and sold a machine of a specific speed, they didn't sell a system DESGINED for that speed. I know someone who got taken by buying some overclocked machines, when this small buisness owner attempted to sue the computer dealer, the judge threw it out, sayign there was no fraud. If he had said it was a system DESIGNED for that speed it would have been fraud.
      • Huh? Was the Judge the dealer's brother or something? He should have appealed. It's obviously very misleading and almost certainly fraud. Tiny semantic changes (like saying "designed") shouldn't protect the scumbag from a jury. Who was your lawyer? Lionel Hutz?

        • Re:Ethical issues? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by The_K4 ( 627653 )
          It wasn't my lawer it was that of a small buisness that I knew the owner of. I don't know if there was an appeal, but the judge (who I would assume was un-connected with the dealer) said that it didn't violate the letter of the law. The guy sold exaclty what he said, a computer RUNNING at a given speed. It's not on the level, and not right, but it's not illegal. Judges are bound by the law, not personal feelings.

  • Further simplification (Score:4, Funny)

    by Gefiltefish ( 125066 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:38PM (#5712715)

    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.
    • Yes, but contrary to the belief of this group, Intel doesn't give a flying fuck about the hobbyist overclockers who do strange shit to their own hardware. Hell, all it can do is make them look GOOD that there's a liquid nitrogen cooled P4 running at 8 ghz or whatever.

      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)

    by elwinc ( 663074 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:39PM (#5712724)
    Maybe the fairest thing for Intel to do is find some way to dectect and record if a chip is ever overclocked. The basic problem with overclocking is those unscrupulous folks who drive a chip to it's death, then try and take it in for a refund. If the chip could detect and record warranty-voiding settings, then overclockers wouldn't be able to void the warranty.

    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.

    • I believe AMD's chips require cutting a certain trace in order to overclock their CPUs. It's something that would be pretty obvious if you were trained to check for it before you accept a return.
    • In fact it is not the higher clock that makes processors die it is more like:

      -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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:39PM (#5712726)
    ..we discuss the ethical implications of using your teabags twice instead of once, and we explore the high-tech solutions to this problem, and the clear connection to terrorism.

  • THANK GOD! (Score:3, Funny)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:40PM (#5712728) Homepage Journal
    I hate overclocking. Now I can't accidentally do it.

    YOU RULE INTEL!
    • All thanks to the space race between AMD and Intel.

      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)

    by aminorex ( 141494 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:42PM (#5712743) Homepage Journal
    Writing material which is readable to the average tech-interested
    layperson is easy. Doing that while avoiding insipidity and
    simplification to the point of being misleading.... ummm....
    priceless?

  • Embedding an oscillator (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:43PM (#5712752) Homepage Journal
    This technique is nothing more than embedding an oscillator on-chip, and using that to monitor the main clock.

    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.
    • Then why not place a quartz into the same packaging as the CPU?

      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.
      • Because:

        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.

    • 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?

      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

    • This is not about embedding an oscillator on the chip. The article linked above implies this, but it's wrong. Please read the patent before making any claims about it. The reference pulse is generated by a special circuit in the chipset. This circuit uses either a ring oscillator or a quartz crystal.
      • In trying to keep my post as simple as possible, while focusing on the primary issue, I oversimplified a bit.

        However, all my previous statement stand as to the impacts of this technique.

  • ethical? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DemENtoR ( 582030 )
    I though it was my property and i could do whatever i wanted with it. Soon we'll be hearing: licenced not owned?

    • Re:ethical? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SoftCoreHonesty ( 665319 )
      It is their property first, though, and if they want to add a mechanism to make overclocking difficult, if not impossible, then it is their right. It is your problem if you still buy it. If they came to your house and installed it on a motherboard that you already owned then you would have a complaint. Otherwise you are just a knee-jerking troll.

  • Ethical issues (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zzzmarcus ( 183118 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:49PM (#5712789)
    I think it's worth it to point out that the article stated that there are ethical issues only when a vendor sells a comptuer that is overclocked without alerting the consumer.
    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.
  • German article [heise.de] about IDF. Note the image (screenshot in English).

  • It's the DOLLAR divide latch (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gelfling ( 6534 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:50PM (#5712796) Homepage Journal
    That's the component that keeps breaking. Intel does not give one nuclear frog fuck about the life of their processors. They care about one and only one thing - the money they can extort out of you on the next upgrade.

    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.
    • No, WE are paying the embedded costs for them finding a clever way to stop UNSCRUPULOUS SELLERS from speeding up chips BEFORE they sell it to THE PUBLIC.

      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)

    by inteller ( 599544 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:53PM (#5712814)
    ....is to buy an AMD. For the money you save you can go buy other goodies for your machine.

  • The article is wrong (Score:5, Informative)

    by Hannibal_Ars ( 227413 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @02:58PM (#5712850) Homepage
    I don't think that the author of this article actually understands the patent in question. Specifically, the reference signal is absolutely not generated on the CPU die, as the author claims. Intel's new scheme is still dependent on the chipset's cooperation.

    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.h tm l

    • Re:The article is wrong (Score:3, Informative)

      by JoeBuck ( 7947 )

      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)

    by quakeroatz ( 242632 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @03:01PM (#5712875) Journal
    I was actually thinking about building a P4 box for my next main machine and looking forward to the quiet whirr of a stock Intel heatsink. After 3 years of Delta Fans on Athys, I thought a P4 was a great idea for silence and overclocking. And what does Intel do? They bend all the OCers over and kick us squarely in the nuts.

    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.

  • force licencers of the newer computer busses to include some sort of anti-overclock mechinism directly on the bridge chips on the MB itself (since the article says the clock speed isn't controlled by the processor, I'm assuming that's where it's done)

    Sure, it's facist, but it seems cheaper and a bit simpler.

  • It's not worth overclocking (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The money and expense it takes to over clock a cpu usually costs more than just buying a more expensive processor. There isn't much difference from a 2.5 Ghz and 3 Ghz processor technically, but the price reduction in return for the minimal performance is huge!

    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)

    by Jedi Alec ( 258881 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @03:08PM (#5712911)
    For a while now, Asus has had the bad habit of tweaking their FSB slightly out-of-spec, for example a 135 MHz FSB instead of 133. Although only a slight overclock, this can easily lead to speed increase of 100 MHz on the (currently) high-spec processors. If Intel were to tweak their overclock-detection to such a point that it can even detect minor increases, I'll be curious what happens to Asus...
    • i just overclocked my a7s333 last weekend and the locked state for my 2100xp is 133x13= 1733. Right now it is increased from 133 to 150, bumping the FSB speed from 266 to 300. however, the board can go up to 333, so i guess it all depends on the multiplier setup on the chip.

  • Ethics (Score:2, Interesting)

    by vadim_t ( 324782 )
    The article mentions that this would protect against a vendor who sells overclocked CPUs as if they were originally made to run at that speed. But I don't think this is the only reason. They surely want to stop people from overclocking so that they buy a faster CPU instead.

    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)

      by Latent IT ( 121513 )
      Well, I'm sure that if you're unethical enough to sell a computer with an overclocked processor and not tell your customer, you might not think twice about flashing the motherboard bios with a bios image that wouldn't pop that message up.

      Fixes that will actually be hard to get around have to be done in hardware.

  • heres a satisfactory compromise (Score:3, Interesting)

    by k3v0 ( 592611 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @03:19PM (#5712966) Journal
    sell 2 chips, the OEM locked version and the stand alone overclockable version. overclockers happy, OEM consumers not getting ripped off
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Dumb question.... aren't you using AMD anyway? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wrero ( 314883 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @03:24PM (#5713016)
    Um, maybe this is a dumb question.....

    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)

    by Xawen ( 514418 )
    Ok, maybe I just don't get it.

    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?
    • Because the article is slightly wrong: See HannibalArs' post [slashdot.org] about it. I would trust ArsTechnica more.

      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
  • Well, how the hell am I supposed to make the internet go even faster?

    (Okay, it was a lame joke about "The Pentium 4 makes the web go faster...get off my back!)

  • Fastsilicon.com (Score:4, Informative)

    by fastsilicon ( 665370 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @03:46PM (#5713180)
    This is Nigel, the owner of fastsilicon.com. As you probably already know, we are having some issues with our server at the moment. Thanks for your support. Now, focusing on the article... "I don't think that the author of this article actually understands the patent in question" This article was not written for the "l33t geek", but for the average "user" to understand. We have simplified many of the more technical terms. And yes, we fully understand what were talking about :) I appreciate all your feedback.
  • I know heat, listed in this article, is a major concern for overclocking, but how about parasitic capacitances?

    (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)

      by cgori ( 11130 )
      Erm, parasitic capacitance is inherent in silicon, it's not produced by bad etching. The reason people talk about parasitic cap so much these days is that it has come to dominate the delay equation for logic paths. This equation basically says (Sum of gate delays + Sum of wire delays + Required Setup Time + Clock Skew = Fastest cycle time).

      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
  • Forget what the article says; check out that stylesheet! It's the ol' scrolling-text-over-a-nonscrolling-image trick.
  • The second I saw the headline, I though onboard RC oscillator triggering some microcode on startup, and count how many cycles you can run during one onboard clock pulse. It looks like this is what they are doing and it isn't rocket science. Disabling or crippling the microproccesor is trivial task once it's determined the clock is out of spec.

    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)

    by CTho9305 ( 264265 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @04:30PM (#5713467) Homepage
    Many may ask at this point, "If the processor does more work with higher clock speeds, why are there limitations on the clock speed - why can't one run a processor as fast as they want?". Although there are many factors that contribute to the answer to this question, the basic answer to this is heat. With every clock pulse, electricity flows through the processor. Because of resistance in the processor's pathways (think of it as a sort of electrical friction), some of this energy is converted to heat, similar to what happens when you rub your hands together very quickly. The higher the clock speed, the more often the clock pulses come, which means that more heat is generated at higher clock speeds. Because processors don't react well to the effects of this heat, testing is done to determine the maximum clock speed that they can run at safely.

    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)

    by Newer Guy ( 520108 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @04:47PM (#5713560)
    First off, I can't see why overclocking seems to work Intel's panties into such a froth. Overclocking a processor is no different then 'hot rodding' a car! Hobbyists take delight in getting those few extra horsepower out of something, whether it be a CPU or a Hemi. Bragging rights are also involved. Yet you don't see the car companies patenting devices that inhibit an engine's horsepower output. They see it as a tribute to their engineering designs that people can do this- and rightly so. Now comes along Intel -the spoiler- who pulls a hissy fit everytime someone even MENTIONS overclocking! Yes, I agree that remarking chips and selling them is wrong, but there are laws in place to deal with this. They're called fraud laws and they've worked quite well for decades! Frankly, I think that AMD has a MUCH more reasonable approach to overclocking...they make it possible -yet very obvious visually- when someone overclocks their CPU's. GROW UP INTEL...take the fact that you make great products that hobbyists love to: 'push the enevlope on' as a source of pride, instead of having a tantrum over it!

  • From The Article (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ancil ( 622971 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @06:28PM (#5714093)
    Some systems integrators have been known to sell slower, less expensive processors that are remarked with higher clock speeds in order to make an extra profit. Ethically, this is questionable..
    Can't we even say something is wrong anymore? I know we live in an age of moral relativism, but can't lying and stealing just be wrong?

  • The future: we'll charge you for the MHz (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SebastianPY ( 662428 ) on Friday April 11, 2003 @09:13PM (#5714643)
    We will sell you one 2 Ghz processor. But it will only be activated @ 500 MHz. You want it to run faster? mmmmmm well pal, you'll have to pay us $50. How it will be activated? send us the money, we'll send you a password. Oh naughty boy!, don't try to get this password at those ugly hacker sites. The password is wired to a serial number inside the processor. What, you want 2 Ghz? sorry, the $50 I was talking about was for 1 Ghz. For 2 GHz is $80. Oh, by the way, that is just the 1 yr fee. At the end of the period your processor will go back to 500 Mhz. But don't worry, you know where to reach us! Think about it this way: we love so much to increase the speed of your CPU that we will do it regularly!! In a way, we are liberating your CPU. (I love that word, you can use it for almost anything these days). Thanks for shopping Intel!

  • "only a matter of time" until this is cracked? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by peter ( 3389 ) on Saturday April 12, 2003 @02:56AM (#5715401) Homepage
    bullshit. If they're doing this on purpose to make it hard to break, they're not going to connect some pins you can short to turn it off, or it would defeat the purpose of it (stopping vendors from selling fake O/Ced systems). This would be implemented inside the CPU, so you'd have to crack open the plastic case, at the very least. If they can implement their timer and pulse-counter on the same silicon as the rest of the CPU, you'd have to hack the silicon in a clean-room. That's nice for people with access to a high-quality clean-room (and something to hack silicon with!), but most people would buy a brand-new Alpha workstation instead of buying the gear it would take to even _try_ to O/C such a CPU. (An on-chip implementation would need a high-frequency oscillator, but you can't make inductors in an IC. They'd probably have some sort of laser-trimmed RC oscillator if they did it all on chip.) Even if there were some off-chip components, like a quartz oscillator to provide a reference frequency (they could use a standard freq, and multiply it on chip according to the rated clock speed, which could be burned into a specially prepared area with a laser or something), you'd have to crack open the CPU, which might be mechanically very difficult to do without damaging the silicon, esp. if Intel wanted that to be the case. You could then replace the reference quartz crystal with a faster one. (As long as underclocking was allowed, you could use crystal twice as fast, and then you wouldn't have to replace it every time you wanted to try a different speed.)

    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 :) (and where overclockability is pretty well tested for that kind of CPU), and even then only by a little bit.

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