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Intel's Anti-Overclocking Technology Simplified
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."
i keep getting 404 error when trying to read comments... what a great idea. force people to RTFA before making comments!
your site crumble at very first few posts and you dare calling yourself 'FastSilicon'?
This article is a fabrication. The technology remains complicated as ever. Victory by our glorious forces over the AMD infidels is imminent.
Former Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
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
Introduction
Many of you may have read the recent article in the inquirer that reports on a patent that was granted to Intel for an overclocking detection and prevention device. With all due respect to our fellow journalists (they did post the story first), this article was a little lacking on the clear technical interpretation that we know our readers crave. As an alternative, you could fight your way through "United States Patent 6,535,988 - March 18, 2003", but to save you the trouble we here at Fastsilicon.com have done it for you. Herein we present a layman's guide to the patent that has got some of the overclocking community up in arms, and tell you why it's all bad. To begin our explanation, it is appropriate to explain how the system clock relates to the processor, and what "overclocking" is all about.
Clocking, Over- and Otherwise:
The way processors work in conjunction with their clock is fairly simple. Connected to the microprocessor's core is a device that produces an electrical pulse a certain number of times per second. This pulse is a sort-of "heartbeat", and with each pulse the processor does some work. The faster the pulses come, the more work the processor does. The rate at which the pulses come is expressed in units of Hertz (abbreviated as "Hz"), which stands for "times per second". If our pulse is coming 1 time per second, then we say that it has a frequency of "1 Hz", and hence the processor speed is 1 Hz. Obviously nobody runs processors at this speed; we are more accustomed to processor speeds that are measured in Megahertz (MHz) or Gigahertz (GHz), where 1 MHz is 1 million times per second and 1 GHz is 1 billion times per second. Additionally, some processors internally multiply this pulse, so in effect the processor sees (for example) 10 pulses for every external clock pulse. For the sake of simplifying things though, we'll ignore this multiplyer and proceed with the assumption that things are happening at a 1:1 ratio.
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. 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.
Running a processor at a higher clock speed than labeled by increasing the rate at which clock pulses happen is known as "overclocking". Because there is some "statistical leeway" in the tests that are done to determine the maximum clock speed, many times one can overclock a processor and achieve more performance without a perceived negative effect. As most hobbyists know, these negative effects come somewhat gradually as you slide up the clock speed curve. At one clock speed things may be good, but as one increases it they see more system glitches until the computer simply will no longer boot. This is where the "perceived" part of the negative effect comes in. One may not outwardly notice errors as they use a moderately overclocked system, but they still may be occuring, and the life of the processor may be degraded. In particular, processor subsystems such as the random number generator can lose some of thei
I hope you die painfully and alone.
Intel is evil, that's why I don't buy their crap.
Overclocking is just good 'ol fun.
KARMA TAG! You're it.
"And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."
Intel's Anti-Overclocking Technology Explanined
Posted: 2003-04-10 by nigel
By: Nathan
Introduction
Many of you may have read the recent article in the inquirer that reports on a patent that was granted to Intel for an overclocking detection and prevention device. With all due respect to our fellow journalists (they did post the story first), this article was a little lacking on the clear technical interpretation that we know our readers crave. As an alternative, you could fight your way through "United States Patent 6,535,988 - March 18, 2003", but to save you the trouble we here at Fastsilicon.com have done it for you. Herein we present a layman's guide to the patent that has got some of the overclocking community up in arms, and tell you why it's all bad. To begin our explanation, it is appropriate to explain how the system clock relates to the processor, and what "overclocking" is all about.
Clocking, Over- and Otherwise:
The way processors work in conjunction with their clock is fairly simple. Connected to the microprocessor's core is a device that produces an electrical pulse a certain number of times per second. This pulse is a sort-of "heartbeat", and with each pulse the processor does some work. The faster the pulses come, the more work the processor does. The rate at which the pulses come is expressed in units of Hertz (abbreviated as "Hz"), which stands for "times per second". If our pulse is coming 1 time per second, then we say that it has a frequency of "1 Hz", and hence the processor speed is 1 Hz. Obviously nobody runs processors at this speed; we are more accustomed to processor speeds that are measured in Megahertz (MHz) or Gigahertz (GHz), where 1 MHz is 1 million times per second and 1 GHz is 1 billion times per second. Additionally, some processors internally multiply this pulse, so in effect the processor sees (for example) 10 pulses for every external clock pulse. For the sake of simplifying things though, we'll ignore this multiplyer and proceed with the assumption that things are happening at a 1:1 ratio.
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. 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.
Running a processor at a higher clock speed than labeled by increasing the rate at which clock pulses happen is known as "overclocking". Because there is some "statistical leeway" in the tests that are done to determine the maximum clock speed, many times one can overclock a processor and achieve more performance without a perceived negative effect. As most hobbyists know, these negative effects come somewhat gradually as you slide up the clock speed curve. At one clock speed things may be good, but as one increases it they see more system glitches until the computer simply will no longer boot. This is where the "perceived" part of the negative effect comes in. One may not outwardly notice errors as they use a moderately overclocked system, but they still may be occuring, and the life of the processor may be de
-- To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else. Bernadette Devlin McAliskey
If this is not about control then they should give a way to turn it off. Otherwise, they are blowing smokes up our butts.
CPU Speed Trap:
The abstract of the Intel patent reads as follows:
An over-clock deterrent mechanism of a chipset which comprises an over-clock detection circuit for detecting over-clocking of a system (processor) clock signal based on comparison of ratio of the system (processor) clock signal which is likely to be over-clocked and a fixed, stable reference clock signal which is highly unlikely to be over-clocked, and an over-clock prevention (thwarting) circuit for deterring such an over-clocking by either disabling operations of a computer system or significantly undermining key operations of a computer system.
Unlike the rest of the patent description, this is comparitively easy to understand. An Intel scientist invented a way to keep a microprocessor running at a specified clock speed by comparing it to a reference clock. Further, the patent details ways of acting upon an out-of-spec clock speed, all of which involve slowing the processor down in one way or another.
To explain the base technology that enables this CPU speed trap, we need to look no further than our television sets. Specifically, a television set tuned to TNN on Sunday afternoon. For those that haven't a clue what I'm talking about, check out TNN on Sunday sometime. For those that do know what I'm talking about, you probably still don't get what microprocessors have to do with NASCAR racing. Lucky for you, this curious metaphor is easily explained.
Imagine a racecar doing laps around a superspeedway of known length - say 1 mile. Then, imagine that I ask you to figure out how fast the racecar is going, but there are no radar guns around. How would you do it? The easiest way to determine the racecar's speed would be to count the number of times it goes around the track in one hour and since each lap is 1 mile, this would give us the answer in miles per hour. Pretty simple, isn't it?
Now imagine that we are on another track, of an unknown length. I again ask you to determine the racecar's speed. In this case, the best you could come up with would be a wild guess, because we no longer know the length of one lap. So, we decide that we'll settle for knowing if the racecar is going fast enough to beat an (until now unmentioned) opponent.
We have two cars, both running around the track. We're not running an actual race, so we're not looking for the first to cross the finish line. Rather, we're interested in one thing: whether or not our racecar is going fast enough to beat the other one. To figure this out, we go back to our solution to the first problem. By counting now many times each racecar goes around the track in a specified time period, we know if our racecar is going fast enough to beat the other one. If our racecar goes around the track more times during a fixed time period it's going faster than the opponent's; if it goes around the track fewer times it's going slower. If they go around the track EXACTLY the same number of times, then they're going the same speed and there will be a tie.
If you've followed along to this point, then you understand the technique that Intel is using to determine whether or not a processor is running at a clock speed other than that specified. In our racing metaphor, one lap is equivalent to a clock pulse. We can determine whether the device that generates the clock pulses (our racecar) is going faster than a known reference that is set at the processor's specified clock speed (the opponent's racecar) by counting the number of pulses from each over a fixed time period and comparing them. If we count more pulses for the system clock than the reference (in terms of our metaphor, our racecar is winning), then the system is overclocked. If we count fewer pulses (our racecar is losing), then we are "underclocked". If we count exactly the same number of pulses, there will be a "tie" and we know that both clocks are running at the same rate. Because the reference is actually a part of the processor, it theoretically cannot be tampered with and therefore the processor is running at its specified speed.
I hope you die painfully and alone.
Error 502
;)
Remote server down or not responding.
Looks like Fastsilicon.com isn't that fast
Maybe you should educate the morons of tomorrow so they'll stop believing the leaders of tomorrow. - Dogbert
Penalties for Speeding:
Having solved the first part of the clock-limiting issue, the Intel patent further describes ways to act upon the fact that the processor is overclocked. There are two methods that are described to thwart overclocking once it is detected. The first method simply shuts off power to the processor when an illegal clock speed is detected. This is the equivalent of being thrown in jail: "Do not pass go, do not collect $200". When the power is removed from the processor, the only computing you're likely do get done is on your desk calculator.
The second method proposed utilizes a clock-limiting device already included in Intel's CPU designs. Most modern CPUs include a "thermal control logic device", which is essentially like the thermostat in your house. When the device detects temperatures that are significantly higher than normal, it tells the CPU to slow way down so that it will not generate as much heat. Normally, it takes a significant amount of heat to trigger this response; usually only a fan failure or a missing heatsink can cause temperatures to soar so high. Intel's patent describes a small addition to this device that allows the overclock detection circuit to initiate the same sort of clock-limiting behavior. In such a situation, overclocking turns out to be a losing proposition, because if the processor is overclocked the detection and thwarting system will actually make it run more slowly than if it were running at the normal specified clock speed. If you still don't quite understand how this works, imagine that you get pulled over for speeding. After writing you a ticket, the police officer deflates all 4 of your tires. In such a situation, you might get somewhere, but you're not going to get there very fast until you reinflate your tires. This is what the thermal control logic does; by "deflating the tires" of the CPU, it forces it to slow down until the improper clock speed is corrected.
Summary:
Depending on the specific implementation, Intel's patent is likely to be fairly successful in limiting clock speeds to those specified. Because it does not rely on any external devices, it will be more difficult for users to tamper with. This is not to say that it will be impossible to circumvent, but it is likely that if implemented, the device would be much more resistant to such efforts than any clock-locking method to date. Despite the doom and gloom cries from hobbyist overclockers, clock-locking is not necessarily all bad news. The issue of CPU remarking by systems integrators is a real problem, and is not likely to go away as long as processors can be overclocked. Additionally, addressing this issue is a good thing for the industry because there would be a reduction in returns of "defective" processors that failed due to overclocking. This would reduce costs, and in turn prices. There is also the added benefit that inadvertent mis-clocking due to motherboard failure can be detected and remedied by the user. Undoubtedly the inability to overclock would be a disappointment to many, but in the long run it could be a benefit for all concerned. It is also important to remember that, "in the war between weapons and armor, weapons eventually win", meaning that it is only a matter of time until even the unbreakable is broken. After all, it wouldn't be overclocking without a challenge.
I hope you die painfully and alone.
Now if they could incorporate and Anti-AMD-processor -that-is-faster-for-less-money technology, they'd be all set!
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
1. Detect servers with overclocked processors 2. Post link to slashdot 3. Processor is fried :)
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.
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???
--Less Thinkin', More Drinkin'...
Fast Silicon is not fast enough ;-)
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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...
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
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.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
..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.
I hate overclocking. Now I can't accidentally do it.
YOU RULE INTEL!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Good to see that some tech journalists can still write material understandable by an average person."
/. editors would at least be UNDERSTANDABLE
This is a little unfair. Their views might be a little backasswards sometimes, BUT by turning on spell/grammar check, your fellow
---"What did I say that sounded like 'Tell me about your day?'"---
Yeah I got that first page too. All I got clicking 2 and 3 pages are:
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Session halted.
It's darn informative to describe the layout of their system for the convenience of future h4x0r visit.
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?
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
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.
www.eFax.com are spammers
i love you
Don't you know fifty percent of us switched to Mac wtihin the last year?
Overclocking a CPU you purchased is no different than putting a turbo on your 4-cylinder and making it go faster than the v6.
"Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny."
I though it was my property and i could do whatever i wanted with it. Soon we'll be hearing: licenced not owned?
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 about IDF. Note the image (screenshot in English).
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
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.
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 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.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
....is to buy an AMD. For the money you save you can go buy other goodies for your machine.
ever heard of private property??? no overclocking a law on what you can do with the product that YOU bought and that YOU own.. thats bs and there is nothing wrong with selling ALREADY overclocked set-ups or overclock kits.. that's like saying adding a COLD AIR INTAKE, changing the tires or adding a computer engine management system is wrong.. its your property do what the fuck you want with it
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.
h tm l
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.
Senior CPU Editor | Ars Technica | http://arstechnica.com/
If there is no longer a direct relationship between the clockrate of a proc and the "amount" of work it gets done, that is, the "clockrate" becomes simply a way of differentiating different chips and different manufacturers (or even different programs' efficiency with that particular clockrate), then that clockrate ceases to represent anything meaningful or measurably fixed.
And if _that's_ the case, aren't they just trying to control the meaning/(linguistic)value of a number?
Can that be legal, or even done? Not to mention the obvious dissolution of the concepts of private property and ownership that are central to Capitalism.
In any event, is your average baby-kissing politician even able to understand such a concept before voting on it?
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.
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)
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
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.
-Ryan
AUWYHSTOT (Acronyms are Useless When You Have to Spell Them Out Too)
But I didn't speak out because I wasn't an Overclocker. Then they came for the tweakers But I didn't speak out because I wasn't a tweaker. Then they came for the Linux users But I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Linux user. Then they came for me But by then there was no one left to speak out.
You don't own it until you buy it. Up until that point it is owned by Intel and they can do what they want. They aren't tell you that it is against the law to overclock. They are just making it really difficult. Even if they did make it a law I am not sure how they would ever be able to enforce it.
As for your comment on selling overclocked systems - it is fine as long as the consumer knows that it is overclocked. Otherwise you are commiting fraud.
that's like saying adding a COLD AIR INTAKE, changing the tires or adding a computer engine management system is wrong..
Until you go to a SCCA race or some other organized event where such things are banned...
But otherwise, yeah, I agree. Although I'm not one for overclocking myself...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
what happened to owning things? I mean if i buy a car and slap a 454 bigblock (or what ever it is the gearheads at teh auto shop are alwasy drolling over some this year swimsuit model) in there, the car manufacturer does come knocking down my door, although i supposed that would akin to replacing a the processor witha faster one, but still if i tweak the motor the car came with men in black suits still do not show up.
I understadn the problem of scum sucking bottom feeders buying cheaper chips and overclocking them and then selling them at clock rates higher than they actually are. But look there will always be people out to screw you as long as money is the most sought after object, then there will always be people trying to make a buck either honestly or dishonestly. I'm sure everyone has heard of the used car dealer selling cars as having all orignial parts when the car does not. Is it up tot he car manufacturer to make sure their parts cannot be tweaked, or modified? hell no! it's up to the comsumers to make sure what they think they are buying is what they are actually buying. Stop trying to pass the blame, and take responsibility for yourselves. Manufacturers should not take the blame for other's wrong doings, nor should they inhibit the actions of the hobbists that support them.
but then again, that's just my opinion, i could be wrong.
See how fast they got slashdotted? With all the heat from their burning CPU's, I'd bet that there's lots of liquid silicon on the ground by now...
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 their warranty
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...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
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 check and show a message like "Intel Pentium 4 at 3.5 GHz (OVERCLOCKED! Should be 3 GHz)".
Nobody who intentionally overclocks his/her system would care much about having this banner, it's even a way of bragging about how much you overclocked your CPU. But it should be effective for avoiding vendor overclock.
sell 2 chips, the OEM locked version and the stand alone overclockable version. overclockers happy, OEM consumers not getting ripped off
... An over-clock deterrent mechanism of a chipset which comprises an over-clock detection circuit for detecting over-clocking of a system ... and an over-clock prevention (thwarting) circuit.
Okay, to implement this, they're including a reference clock on the chip, which means that processors of different (marketed) speeds will have to be made with a different process (which has maybe been true for a long time, but I was lead to believe that, eg in the pIII days, the wafers that failed 1Ghz just got sold as 833MHz, etc).
So instead of doing all these calculations to decide if you're "speeding," and then doing even *more* calculations to penalize you, why don't they just expose this reference clock speed in a special interrupt call? And maybe even the relation to the operating speed (eg, "you are overclocked by 10%")? Then, they could release an app that would tell you how fast your computer was SUPPOSED to be, and how fast it IS.
Then, OC'ers could have their cake, and no one else could be taken advantage of by unscrupulous OEMs who overclock to bump up their margins. I concede the point that "most average people will never check anyway," but just having the information *available* should protect Intel from liability, which seems to be the essential idea. Plus, the threat of having the practice exposed at any time should stop at least some of the overclock-resellers.
I wonder how much they spent on developing this and how much it will cost to implement it into their chips. I can't imagine they will ever get their money back out of it, the overclocking community is a niche market compared to the Dell, Gateway's, and HP's of the world.
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In such a situation, overclocking turns out to be a losing proposition, because if the processor is overclocked the detection and thwarting system will actually make it run more slowly than if it were running at the normal specified clock speed.
The solution, of course, is to keep the temperature in the "safe" range at the higher clock speed.
Sounds like a pretty fair tradeoff, all things considering.
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
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 to blaim......
Umm...It hasn't been on TNN for a couple of years now...try Fox, FX, NBC, or TNT.
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 amount of heat produced by your proc doesn't determine the speed bin it went into. The "fastness" of the batch of wafers that die was cut from determines the speed bin. Fet threshold voltages drift from wafer to wafer (and die to die within a wafer). Higher thresholds = slower fets. Heat is proportional to Capacitance*Voltage^2*Frequency. Note that fet resistance isn't in that equation.
a) that doesn't mean the mfger has to make it easy
b) ever read the DMCA?
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?
Jesus, have we come to the point of KP on ./? Is it possible to have this guy's IP completely banned?
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
If the patent was meant to prevent fraud, as the author suggests, why wouldn't they just make the chip display a message that it was being overclocked, upon boot-up perhaps... The way they have done things, it just seems that they are trying to prevent the creative among us (I'm not one who overclocks myself) from getting more than the manufacturer intended for you to get from their chip.... I'm glad the auto industry responds to what customers want instead of taking their cues from the computer industy... we'd be getting Ford Mustangs with a governour on the throttle unless we were willing to pay an extra premium.
People still do this? I havn't heard of anyone buying an overclocked cpu in ages. Even when I did hear about it last (back in Penium II days), it was only from the most shady of merchant, usually the kind that hung out in computer trade shows. Have there been any recent reported cases of this happening?
I read the internet for the articles.
I think the Lear 20 series to be more on target than the 767. A few folks modded LearJets to exceed .82mach without getting a mach overspeed alarm going off. They just added a switch to disable mach overspeed. So if one wanted to kick a lear to .83 just hit the switch and kick in some power. The only problem was a some point over .82 you would start to loose laminar flow over the wing due to some supersonic flow. Needless to say Lear did not approve of this mod and they lost a few Lears over this. However the older Lears are still awesome in flight performance without the stupid "go fast switch".
My mother in law is worse than yours...and yes I will trade!
This is not the coolest thing Intel could've done, but at least this patent is actually for something new.
If Intel be fixing to patent sex with a mare, this feller I know down to the Booker's Ranch got them beat with that there 'prior art'. Wee dawgy, we's goin have a lawsuit!
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?
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!)
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
Additionally, addressing this issue is a good thing for the industry because there would be a reduction in returns of "defective" processors that failed due to overclocking. This would reduce costs, and in turn prices.
Anyone have any numbers for this?
I doubt this has any real impact on why they would use clock locking. I would guess that yields are getting better and they would like to finish a standard chip off with a clock of choice based on market demands. Besides, it is in the CPU manufactors best interest for you to believe that all failures are due to overclocking and not the fault of missed QA test or a bad batch. I'm going to make a wild ass guess with absolutely no basis that not more then 1 in 5000 cpu's have failed and been returned because of overclocking failure.
Remember, we are talking about all CPU sales, businesses included and the 99% of home users who don't even know what a CPU looks like or what a bios or jumper is.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
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.)
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.
Forget what the article says; check out that stylesheet! It's the ol' scrolling-text-over-a-nonscrolling-image trick.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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 logo on the article should be replaced with the 'Patent Pending' spoon-and-fork logo.
Tired of being "punished" by the Slashdot $rtbl since 2002. I'm now over at http://soylentnews.org/ .
.. why the HECK would Intel care about the secondary market? They don't get any money from eBay sales. Wouldn't they *want* their chips to explode when resold so they can push NEW ones???
...........
Does Western Digital care about resold hard drives that have been pushed hard and are ready to fail?
No, when you buy something used, it's been USED and you should expect an earlier failure.
I think the reason for the OC detection is pretty fsckin' clear
The solution, of course, is to keep the temperature in the "safe" range at the higher clock speed.
The whole point of this patent is that even though it borrows the temperature control circuitry to throttle the speed, it doesn't rely on measuring the chip's temperature to determine if the chip is being overclocked in the first place. In other words, it can't be tricked by keeping the chip cool.
In the final analysis, though, I think that having non-overclockable chips will backfire on Intel. Who wants a car that's been throttled to top off at 85 miles an hour, even if you might never have need to go faster in real life?
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
why keep using the external clock. Why not just sell the chip with a fixed clock no matter what system you put it in?
Anybody got answers?
Yah. I bought one. It's called the Athlon XP2000+.
;).
The diff is it's tested and certified to run at those overclocked speeds by AMD
This argument has gone around at least twice. The Pentium 75MHz was the first clock limited Intel cpu. If overclocked more than 5MHz or so it would just halt. This was not an overclocking crash, a literal halt of the cpu. When Intel started locking the multiplier on the P-IIIs, they cited the need to prevent people from selling overclocked systems. The suggested alternative was to place a speed identification in the processor just like the processor serial number they had just put into the P-III so people could use a utility to check the actual sold-as-speed against the running clockrate.
Intel balked at this. The only reason they would balk at that suggestion was because it didn't address their real concern. Their real concern is limiting you to a set level of performance that you pay for. It dosen't matter if you want to take a chance on a crash or invest in better cooling, they intend to control what you can do with the product.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
No, sounds like the overclock detection circuit is based on frequency ratios, not temperature.
The difference under this new scheme is that *two* things that can trigger the clock-limiting action: the thermal detection circuit (temperature-based) or the overclock detection circuit (frequency-based). So keeping the processor at a safe temperature won't work.
They're probably not going to save millions with this effort (what percent of computer owners are elite dudes that overclock?) but times are tight and hey, it's their product.
If they can make the clock internal to the CPU, why do they bother with the external clock at all?
Hello karma whore....you really need to post this in three different pieces right?
If you have an aftermarket car modification you know that you are paying someone for the modification. If your supercharged engine burns a hole in a piston, it is your own damn fault. No ethical problem.
If you overclock your own processor (or even if you pay someone to do it) and it burns up, it is your own damn fault. Again no ethical problem.
On the other hand, if you go to your local 'whitebox' computer store to have a custom PC built, and you pay for a 2Ghz processor, but the builder puts a 1.6Ghz processor in the machine thereby causing the processor to burn up, there is an issue of fraud involved.
I have had this happen when I was the I.T. dept at a small company. We bought our PCs from another local company. One day one quit working. I isolated the cause to the processor, but when I removed the fan I could read the printing on the processor and found out that they had overclocked that machine.
It seemed to be an isolated incident (I checked the other machines) and might have been a mistake, but we never bought from that business again.
McFly777
- - -
"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them?" -Marilyn Pittman
I can see it now, the next step down this road is soft updates of the processor. The customer buys the cheap 2 Ghz machine that really has a 5 Ghz processor locked down to 2 Ghz by intel. Then when the customer wants to upgrade to play a new game, they just pay intel for the unlock code to up the clock. Intel will probably get a patent on that too (remote processor speed upgrades OVER THE INTERNET). They will probably also offer it as a selling feature, Upgrade your computer without opening the case....
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,
My server
So, how many people on /. have actually personally heard of someone recently buying an OC proc from a vender? No friend-of-a-friend stuff either, I mean directly, straight from the sucke... horses mouth?
I have heard of such things, and got suckered on my first 808* PC (and 8086 who thought it was an 8088! [incedentily sold to my parents as a 286] w00t!). I think one of my nongeek friends bought an overclocked 300mhz, but wasn't quite sure if it was a board issue or a proc issue making it run like crap. But I haven't heard of anything like this happening recently.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
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!
I hope so, because I don't want to be limited with what I can do with my processor that I bought and completely own. But then again, I wont buy Intel in the first place.
*** Begin "Which processor is better war" here***
I thought UK speed limits were in kilometers per hour.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
If it is illegal to overclock your computer then it should be illegal to mod your car to make it go faster then it was from the dealer. but it doesnt seem like any one is fighting for that
I wish we could ban the trolls altogether. /. would be less bogged down with useless posts such as those first couple.
Grow up, people.
The whole point of this patent is that even though it borrows the temperature control circuitry to throttle the speed, it doesn't rely on measuring the chip's temperature to determine if the chip is being overclocked in the first place. In other words, it can't be tricked by keeping the chip cool.
Right.
Who wants a car that's been throttled to top off at 85 miles an hour, even if you might never have need to go faster in real life?
Uh, maybe the car is unsafe at speeds over 85? Maybe if you want to drive something faster than 85 you should pay the extra money for a performance car that has better brakes, engine, and suspension?
Don't tell me you're one of those guys with the VTEC sticker and fat exhaust tip on your Honda Civic!
Yes, you own it, and you got what you paid for; if it's a 2.8 GHz processor, you own a 2.8 GHz processor. And since you own it, you're free to open it up and take the governer off.
No, I don't work for Intel. No, I don't see the problem.
Well the sad thing is that Overclockers are a very small minority of the world's population and hence Intel's customer base.
Even among the geek/nerd community you are a minority.
Its something that some people do as a hobby while the rest of the world is using that time more productively. Buying a computer with twice the speed every two years is enough for most people and businesses.
On the other hand, Grandmothers, and Home users are a very large customer base. And Intel would rather them not be turned off of computers because they bought it from some schmuck who took a 2Gig process and Clocked it up to 2.5G and then sold it knowing full well that it would die in 3 months.
Dishonest vendors have already done this in the past. There were motherboards with no cache that included a BIOS that lied about the presence of the cache.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
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!
It takes zero money and little effort to overclock a processor 10-15%, just change a few settings in your Bios.
Now go to Pricewatch and look at the difference in Intels p4's. 8% drop from 3.06 to 2.8Ghz set you back $170. From 2.6 -> 3.06Ghz the price doubles. more than $258.
In addition it is often the same chip, just maked differently. Intel and AMD needs to supply at different pricepoints, but the process and speed yield does not always follow this, so the often bin some higher perfromance chip down.
Help fight continental drift.
Don't tell me you're one of those guys with the VTEC sticker and fat exhaust tip on your Honda Civic!
Dude, don't dis my hatchback Ford Focus!! SVT to tha max, bayyybeeeeee!
Um, no.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Step 1: Disable overclocking
Step 2: ???
Step 3: PROFIT!
Well, then we can continue the conversation. :)
I stand by the idea that overclockers are a minority and Intel's not worried about losing millions to the relatively few overclocking enthusiasts out there. But there's probably a much larger population of crooked dealers that overclock cheap chips for profit. If Joe Consumer buys one of these cheap PC's and the CPU cooks after a month, then Intel gets the rap because Joe doesn't know any better.
Blueprinting and balancing are how you make an engine go faster.
Blueprinting is re-machining various engine parts so that they match their specifications as closely as possible; for example, making sure that the compression in each cyclinder is the same. Under-spec cylinders would not generate maximum power; over-spec ones would knock.
Balancing directly affects your maximum RPM (clock speed). The more accurately you match the weights of reciprocating and rotating components, the faster the engine can run without damaging itself. Think of a washing machine on its spin cycle with an off-center load, and the crashing and banging that results. Or if you have never done laundry ;), think of a tire out of balance.
"The empty vessel makes the greatest sound." -- William Shakespeare; Henry V, 4. 4
If Intel has its reference clock built-in with the processor, why dont they use it instead of depending on the external clock, and then limiting its speed through a round about way.
I just don't understand why Intel would want to fight against hobbyist overclockers. Maybe they think that instead of buying a top-of-the-line chip we buy a cheaper one and overclock it. But I think very few people work like that. Most overclockers have a fixed amount of money to spend, and will buy the best chip they can get. The rest, for whom money doesn't matter, will buy the most expensive Intel chip anyway, and then overclock that. So basically, overclocking doesn't hurt Intel finantially. In fact, it probably helps them. First, there are the blown-up chips, and then there's the fact that many people view overclockability as an important feature in a chip, and without this feature they would be more reluctant to buy. There are already many reasons to think the Hammer will be the chip of the geeks, but if it's the only overclockable desktop chip, its place is guaranteed. That's not a huge loss for Intel, but every bit counts. If enough geeks claim that you're not 1337 if you run Intel, credulous non-geeks will follow their example.
These are all reasons to think that preventing overclocking is a bad marketing move for Intel. If AMD are smart, they will not respond.
I hear the hoods will now be welded shut on most cars, to prevent people from getting more power out of the engine they paid for. The engine will be protected under the DMCA. You are paying for the services of the automobile, not the underlying components.
Add a Turbo, do hard time. Import an engine mod-chip, go to prison. Change your tires to non- OEM spec, fines + probation. Attach Nitrous, you'll be made an example...
I'm not going to pretend that I'm wedded to any particular point of view just to get a religious war going. Intel has undoubtedly done some, er, intel on this subject and has reached the same conclusion you have.
But I think, possibly, that Intel is underestimating the disproportionate mindshare that the enthusiasts have over the market. Who writes the chip and motherboard reviews? Guys like "Anand" and "Tom" (funny how it's always guys, ain't it?) who will wet their pants when they can get their hands on a chip that overclocks to 10K PCMarks in room temperature. These guys have kept AMD alive despite its losing the raw GHz race long ago. These guys are making ATi look like a champ again with its $400 card that 98% of the computer buying public won't even glance at.
In the end, it will probably depend on how much FUD Intel can spread with a smearish campaign that goes something like, "How can you tell if you've been stuck with a grey market CPU? Used to be you couldn't, til it was too late...But with Intel(R) SafeStep(TM) technology, your data will be protected...with Anyother Microprocessor Distributor, it's a roll of the dice."
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
> Uh, maybe the car is unsafe at speeds over 85?
But if your computer crashes, it can't hurt you (excluding ridiculous situations like using your GNU system to run your pacemaker, that anyone could trivially avoid.), unlike your car.
Or are people chomping at the bit to sue Intel when their overclocked system crashes and they lose data? I hope rabid lawyers aren't forcing Intel into this, and I doubt that's the case.
There is no safety issue. The only issue I'm aware of surrounding this is remarked CPUs. I don't know what's wrong with making this detectable by coding the CPU's rated clock frequency into it (by burning bits with a laser in an already set). That's what they do now, AFAIK. I think the rated speed can be read with CPUID. All you need is to get BIOS makers to check that and print a big warning when the computer boots up. People who sell overclocked systems would then have to customize the BIOS to skip that check. hmm, actually that might not be very hard, if they're already willing to go to the trouble of putting fake labels on CPUs, so that wouldn't work. If Intel got MS to put a check for O/Ced CPUs into windoze, system vendors could hack it to not print any warning messages about it. I think a legal solution to this would be better. There can't be too many of these system vendors willing to go to the trouble of hacking a BIOS and sticking a fake label on a CPU, so you just need to prosecute them. The checked-by-the-BIOS thing would stop the less hard-core unscrupulous vendors.
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
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.)
:) (and where overclockability is pretty well tested for that kind of CPU), and even then only by a little bit.
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
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
I just wonder how much more of the market share Intel will lose to AMD again. Tuning CPU speed is not always "for fun, for thrill". I run my box at default speed 95% of time, and it's enough. But I have a few emulators, where overclocking by 10% drastically changes performance (the sound stops pausing as the framerate doesn't keep up). I also plan to downclock it a safe 100MHZ down when I buy a new one and retire this one to become a 24/7 server. Is this wrong? BTW, this is not the first time they do something equally dumb. Do you remember the technical difference between SX and DX? :) It's just that back then they didn't have any serious competition.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
If it was, say, a 1.5 GHz overclocked to 2.0 GHz, and sold as "running at 2.0 GHz," then this was a true statement. As for whether it was misleading, it depends on the chip and the overclocking. It's quite conceivable that some chips could be overclocked by 10-20% and still be more reliable than other chips clocked at the manufacturer's spec'd speed. Should it then be illegal to sell overclocked versions of these chips, even though they're still more reliable than other chips legally on the market?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Overclockers are synonymous with AMD anyway.
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
In the case of cars, this is done for safety reasons, and fitting a mod-chip AFAIK is not illegal (in some countries it may be an illegal modification to bypass the speed restriction, but replacing the chip itself eg for better fuel economy is not a crime). I can't see Intel successfully claiming that they are limiting the speed of their chips for safety reasons, but I can see them invoking the DCMA.
I've got a good idea for anti-overclocking as it were (not that I hope important people will read this email).
@ Intel gets a new chip and overclocks it to as far as it'll go safely.
@ Intel then relabels this as the new overclocked speed.
@ People who try to overclock the already-overclocked-chip will fail.
Dont think you can get more simple than that.
Thank you and good night.
You're a bunch of fucking useless nigger queers in dire need of being savagely raped, beaten and fed to the wolves like three little piggies.
G to the oatse
C to the izzecks
Fo shizzle mah nizzle