Friday, December 5th 2008
Phenom II at 6+ GHz: How AMD May Have Done It
A couple of weeks ago, at the AMD Austin Tech Day event, the company stunned the computer enthusiast community, by presenting to the press, the overclocking capabilities of the upcoming Phenom II X4 processor. The enginners managed to boot the machine at CPU speeds in excess of 6 GHz, 6.213 GHz to be precise. A close-up snap of a portion of the CPU-Z window showing the overclock, made its way to AMD's own photostream at Flickr, among other pictures related to the event.
The picture reveals the clock speed at 6213.6 MHz, bus speed at 200 MHz, FSB multiplier at an unreal 31.0x and resulting HyperTransport link speed at 1002.2 MHz. This would mean that they may have dropped down the HT link multiplier (normally 200 x 10.0 for the Phenom II X4 940) to 5x. We already know from previous reports that the vCore was set around 1.90 Volts, and that a copper pot with liquid nitrogen was used to cool the chip. The motherboard used, from the pictures, appears to be Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H, which is based on the AMD 790GX + SB750 chipset. For more pictures, browse through the photostream. More pictures could be added to the stream once the NDA lifts on December 14.
The picture reveals the clock speed at 6213.6 MHz, bus speed at 200 MHz, FSB multiplier at an unreal 31.0x and resulting HyperTransport link speed at 1002.2 MHz. This would mean that they may have dropped down the HT link multiplier (normally 200 x 10.0 for the Phenom II X4 940) to 5x. We already know from previous reports that the vCore was set around 1.90 Volts, and that a copper pot with liquid nitrogen was used to cool the chip. The motherboard used, from the pictures, appears to be Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H, which is based on the AMD 790GX + SB750 chipset. For more pictures, browse through the photostream. More pictures could be added to the stream once the NDA lifts on December 14.
88 Comments on Phenom II at 6+ GHz: How AMD May Have Done It
That's meaningful to you of course if you make your own money... but if daddy buys it for you, I can understand how you can like "The King".
Way to go AMD!
10q HTC!
After that, OC the CPUs to ... 4.5 GHz or so and repeat the tests so we can see what kind of scalability they offer.
Then, and only then, would we be able to say: CPU "X" is better then CPU "Y".
Maybe we can ask W1zzard if he can put a "performance per watt and per dollar" in a possible upcoming review ...
And then adjust for things like:
Core i7: minus points for prohibitive cost of i7-compatible motherboard, plus points for joing SLI-CrossfireX capability.
Phenom II: minus points for being 2nd place in over speed, plus points for compatibility for current motherboards
As for "2nd place in over speed", as you put it, ... says who? Have you seen any benches with i7 VS Phenom II? I know i haven't :(
Dunno for AMD CPUs because they haven't been launched yet.
These semi-conductors get smaller and smaller they use less power (and that is good)... there is a point where the voltage can literally change the structure of a gate, breaking it. What I'm trying to say is that a door for people to pass through will hold it's form for just so long with so much use but on Black Friday when the energy of the crowd outside of Walmart got too intense the front doors of the Walmart were forced from their hinges, a greeter was trampled to death, and a pregnant woman severely injured. People still bought goods... Walmart still operated but at what cost?
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