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AMD Athlon XP 2000+ Review 6 Weeks Before Release
Mathew Solnik writes: "Tom's Hardware has a review of the AMD Athlon XP 2000+ 6 weeks prior to its official release. This review shows how to unlock the multiplier on the AthlonXP and how to reach AthlonXP 2000+ speeds easily." Note that by doing so, you are voiding any warranty you may have started with, risk blowing up your eyeballs, etc; do proceed with caution.
I think it's cool that AMD has made it so easy to make this chip overlockable. According to the article, all you have to do is connect the L1 contacts, and that's it.
although, keep in minde this is not for the faint hearted. you will also need a conductive lacquer to connect the contacts, tape, super glue, a scalpel, and multimeter. I don't know about you guys, but I think when all this is required to overclock your CPU, it's a bit much for the rewards you get.
Also, for most users, the faster processors like this new AMD are so fast anyways, that overclocking them will probably give a faster experience only in benchmarks, and not in real user experience. It's a cool article, none the less - but if you just bought one of these babies, would You want to pull out all these tools to overclock it?
I would play it safe and be happy with my already fast computer.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
If you read through the article, it points to several pictures where things went awry. One such example is where the superglue ran under the scotch tape onto the contacts and couldn't be scraped off.
Some superglue manufacturers offer a thicker type that doesn't run quite as eagerly as the liquid type. It is more the consistency of model airplane glue so you have more control as to where the glue actually goes. It can be found at hardware stores and any place that offers a decent selection of adhesives. This may be a better solution than hoping and preying that your masking job is adequate and liquid superglue does seem to have a mind of it own sometimes as my fingers will testify.
Since you're going to the trouble to buy silver laquer (in either the bottle like Tom's used, or in an applicator pen) you might as well go to the trouble of buying conformal coating material in a bottle or applicator pen- it's not THAT much more expensive. While it's cure time is a lot longer than superglue's, it's designed for this sort of thing and it's at least a little easier if you fsck things up with your end run around AMD's overclock blocks (because it's laquer and will give you some options to carefully scrape any overflow off of the lands.).
By the by, this all seems like a lot of effort for little payback. Some of you may not want to do this.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Tom's Hardware is also using the wrong tools for the job. Even other overclockers know better. There are pens for writing PC board traces with conductive ink. Using conductive paint and tape is doing it the hard way.
Be careful when scraping off the pad. You don't want to roughen the bottom of the heatsink. Ideally, it would be as smooth as a mirror, but few heatsinks are of that quality. Scrape carefully, and at the end, use a finger nail / alocohol to get the last bits off.
My server
You are comparing a CPU to a piece of software. When I buy a CPU, I am buying a physical device. When I buy software, I am buying a license to perform only a few particular acts with that software, not the software itself. Since I actually own my CPU, I can do whatever I want with it: overclock it, paint it, use it as a frisbee, burn it up, freeze it, chew on it, sell it, whatever. All I can do with software is use it as the license dictates, and sell that license to someone else (right of first sale (or something like that) -- no matter what anybody says I can do this, as long as all physical copies of the software are transferred as well).
A solution to the problem with music today