Sunday, September 18th 2011
AMD's Bulldozer 8.4GHz+ OC Achievement: Cooled to Near-Absolute Zero
AMD's Bulldozer 8.4 GHz+ OC Achievement: Cooled to Near-Absolute Zero
TechPowerUp recently brought you news on AMDs fantastic overclocking achievement with their new processors. Now we can tell you how it was done: cherry-picking the chips and slapping on some water cooling isn't quite enough. AMDs new processors can operate at much lower temperatures without displaying the "cold bug" - where it just gives up and goes home - and performance scales very well at super-low temperatures. The problem is that the cold affects lots of things such as timing, but more importantly, power circuits, which stop switching and just fry everything in sight - surely one to avoid. AMD senior manager of social media, Simon Solotko explains in detail how it was all done, using both liquid helium and liquid nitrogen to make the poor processor really cold. The new processor had these great qualities, according to Solotko:
Source:
The Register
TechPowerUp recently brought you news on AMDs fantastic overclocking achievement with their new processors. Now we can tell you how it was done: cherry-picking the chips and slapping on some water cooling isn't quite enough. AMDs new processors can operate at much lower temperatures without displaying the "cold bug" - where it just gives up and goes home - and performance scales very well at super-low temperatures. The problem is that the cold affects lots of things such as timing, but more importantly, power circuits, which stop switching and just fry everything in sight - surely one to avoid. AMD senior manager of social media, Simon Solotko explains in detail how it was all done, using both liquid helium and liquid nitrogen to make the poor processor really cold. The new processor had these great qualities, according to Solotko:
It was able to take a lot of voltage, extremely low temperatures, extremely high frequencies," he said. "It was very durable under extreme overclocking. So that was awesome. So it worked well, it scaled well, it responded to cold well - all the right variables.This overclock is an impressive feat and it will be interesting to see if Intel can match it.
116 Comments on AMD's Bulldozer 8.4GHz+ OC Achievement: Cooled to Near-Absolute Zero
Yea well technically when you go for an extremely high frequency you want ES processors, whether its from intel or AMD, because usually they have unlocked/no set TDPs and thus can have very leaky transistors, high leakage = higher frequency potential. That is one reason you see Intel ES CPUs OC higher than retail, with Sandy bridge CPu PLl overvoltage changed that, but none the less. These frequencies are amazing, the only down part is that it doesn't take a nice CPU to hit those speeds, I think celerons owned the record before these buldozers. i just hope they can get to a moderate high frequency to beat a 6ghz SB-E, if we can see them benching at 1ghz higher AMD might be in luck!
I DO NOT expect anyone to claim otherwise. I wasn't evne going ot post in this thread; I just wanted to get that picture in there. I probably shouldn't have even bothered.
I've said before, it's cool to see, and a bit exciting, but I'll feel much better with chips in my hands to play with. Doesn't matter what ANYONE says, I refuse to make any judgments on Bulldozer until I do it myself, as many sources out in the wild are suspect, and this whole Bulldozer story has caught out quite a few people, for sure.
And myself, I'm fully aware of what chips were doing what. I still have a 347 cellery sitting here on my desk. Didn't keep it for no reasion. ;)
1. You saw yourself from the picture in the news thread how many were labeled 8Ghz and how many were close. At least a few. Chew has also told us his method of selecting the chips and it wasnt nearly as in depth/binned as you think it was (quote to follow)...
2. If people here are setting their expectations that high, they just are clueless about how it was achieved.
2a. This press release wasnt really meant for average joe TPU so much as it was for others that have an idea about extreme overclocking and what that means. Generally, and there are many exceptions, the higher a CPU can clock like this, the higher it can go with normal cooling...and that it scales quite well under cold and voltage.
my point is simply take it by itself. a silicon chip can now do instructions at 8.4ghz. that is technologically awesome and i don't think anyone saying so is expecting their retail chip to do anything close.
Which is why I question how this event was marketed in the first place.
You get what I mean? I'm not trying to downplay how cool this is...but the fact remains it's only really cool to a few people, globally. like less than 0.000001% of the world's population cares that this CPU design can set a world record, and even less care that they can do it ONLY near absolute zero.
I mean, hasn't Intel shown 100GHz tansistors, or some such nonsense? How about a 100-core CPU? This is just as unimportant to daily life, and should not, really, be hyped as any real technological feat.
At least, not so early before CPUs are in retail. If this was done on launch day, I wouldn't have taken this side of the argument. I'd be busy trying to get chips to get these clocks myself.
Except reality has me sitting here analyzing it instead.
still though, i am not an overclocker. my hardware is perfect for it, but i just don't have an interest. i don't attend any shows, i don't do any of that. i just think world speed cpu records are cool, and always have.
i think more people appreciate it just as a technological advancement. than you seem to think. they don't have to understand the architecture to know 8.4ghz is a high number, a world record is a cool thing (imo) and a jump in speed (even under such conditions) is always welcome.
something of course can be said for how they released it, but i really just think people are sick of waiting and so are being cynical. i choose to take it on it's own.
Thank you.
I just hope that these can bench at 7ghz consistently(also AMD later batches tend to be better than ES, just because the processing tech gets better(llano for example)), and hopefully be able to beat a 6ghz SB-E, if AMD can pull that off, 1ghz higher, same core numbers or even higher. If they can pull that off, average joes will buy them up and OC them to hell and not spend a fraction of what they would spend on a SB-E system. that is just the truth, AMD has beaten Intel before, if anyone here is old enough to remember the P4 days, AMD rocked, Then Intel gained room. I left the OC sense when Intel sucked, and my P4 561 held its own WR(still does), i come back and Intel is way ahead, now maybe the tides will turn. From what I have seen ambient temps and so Intel is far ahead, even with bulldozer, but this gives AMD a chance to win over the extreme overclockers.
I agree, I dont try to do any extreme overclocking. this year is when I finally tried out water-cooling for my cpu
I dont ever overclock to any speed that is a pain to stabilize so I appreciate when I can take a cpu and easily overclock for a major bonus
LHe was used for the 8.4 record, LN2 (cheaper) was used to bin the chips (lower o/c).
not only they didn't use it together, it was a complete process to completely remove the LN2 residues before using LHe..
on topic, too sad they disabled 6 cores, i'm curious to max o/c on all 8 cores..
I really hate PR stunts :banghead:
And yeah, i saw it pop. Crazy stuff done by crazy guys, setting a crazy record. Seems fitting. :laugh: