Intel Puts the Lock on Overclocking

Patrick Schmid writes "Intel included an overclocking-prevention mechanism into the 915/925 chipsets. So far, only Asus and Gigabyte know how to override it. You can start from the beginning or jump to where we discuss the overclocking lockout."

Comments

Market Share

[drsmack1]

Do these sorts of things hurt their business? I wonder how many would not buy into Intle knowing that there are these sorts of things built in? I imagine that the big corps don't care.

Re:Market Share

[Supp0rtLinux]

Remember... all the big OEMs are pushing the high-end gaming systems to the "new breed of computer users". Just as there's a resurgence in IT spending, there's a new breed of home PC user that doesn't mind paying $3000+ for a high-end system. No, corporate America doesn't give a rip about overclocking cause they care about their warranties. But there's a growing group that does... and choices like this make them turn to AMD. AMD has better, cheaper 64bit support. And they still make overclocking easier. Intel is cutting off their nose to spite their face. Funny... you'd think Intel would learn from Microsoft's example instead of repeating the same mistakes...

re: market share

[ed.han]

my bet is that intel took this step for legal reasons, to protect themselves from possible lawsuits. even though chips probably come w/ "no user serviceable parts inside" disclaimers, theoretically, a good attorney might be able to get them into trouble if someone mods a chip, it blows up the user's box, and he sues them.

ed

Re:Market Share

[lukewarmfusion]

No, these help their business. The percentage of people that overclock their machines is probably very small. However, the people that are willing to spend money upgrading their hardware are much more common. So Intel capitalizes on the fact that more people are willing to spend money on upgrades than to overclock.

Very few people will "not buy into" Intel because there are mechanisms like this in place... because most people don't know that overclocking exists, and many of the people who do aren't going to overclock anyway. No loss for Intel.

Re:Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think this post needs to be modded down, try using the reply button instead.

I guess that might work. Moderators, please mod above post down (and thanks for the tip drsmack1).

Re:Market Share

[NanoGator]

"I wonder how many would not buy into Intle knowing that there are these sorts of things built in?"

I find it unlikely Dell customers are buying machines thinking about overclocking.

Re:Market Share

[WormholeFiend]

I understand your point, but if that is the case, why put any overclocking mechanism in the first place?

If the people who don't care about it don't overclock and buy upgrades, is Intel trying to force the small minority of OCers to buy upgrades as well, instead of squeezing in extra speed/mileage from older chips?

Re:Market Share

[amRadioHed]

No, these help their business. The percentage of people that overclock their machines is probably very small. However, the people that are willing to spend money upgrading their hardware are much more common. So Intel capitalizes on the fact that more people are willing to spend money on upgrades than to overclock.

I can't imagine this will do anything but hurt them. The people who were going to spend the money to get a faster intel chip before are still going to. The people who were going to buy an intel chip and overclock it are now just going to buy an AMD. How is this possibly going to get them any new sales?

Very few people will "not buy into" Intel because there are mechanisms like this in place... because most people don't know that overclocking exists, and many of the people who do aren't going to overclock anyway. No loss for Intel.

Sure, very few people will "not buy into" Intel because of this, but ZERO people will buy Intel just because of this. few > ZERO, thus it's a net loss for Intel.

Re:Market Share

[lukewarmfusion]

It might be something like the NVidia deal from a while back: They had similar products that were priced differently, and with a firmware update you could get the more expensive product without buying it. A lot of hardware sites describe a chip by comparing its overclocked state to a higher-up product. For example, a 2.6GHz overclocked CPU that runs like a 3.0 - but you save $150.

Re:Market Share

[ValourX]

If anything, the overclocker group is *shrinking*, not growing. Back when there was a huge difference with OCing, it had a following. Nowadays it isn't nearly as popular or as common a practice not necessarily out of technological restriction so much as a lack of need for an insignificant gain in speed.

-Jem

Re:Market Share

[PhxBlue]

Truly, I think that's only half the equation. It's cheaper for Intel to produce one chip architecture and then lock it down at slower speeds than it is for them to provide multiple chip architectures for various speeds. That may be part of why they feel they have to lock down the chips--because otherwise someone who wanted a 3.0 GHz processor might only pay for a 2.6 GHz processor (the horror!) and overclock it.

Re:Market Share

[Lord Kano]

Funny... you'd think Intel would learn from Microsoft's example instead of repeating the same mistakes...

What? Being a multibillion dollar company that clears tens of millions of dollars per day in profit?

Bad example.

LK

Re:Market Share

[aztektum]

Try not to sound like Intel beat ur dog and poured sugar down your gas tank next time.

This lockout is built into their new chipset, not the processor. Last I looked there were motherboards out there using non-Intel chipsets to run their processors.

Re: market share

[Anonymous Coward]

it blows up the user's box

What do you think this is, star trek? Maybe you can convince it of an illogical proposition, causing it to blow up in a huge cloud of smoke.

The amount of explosive material inside a standard CPU is quite small. Unless that's how they're stopping the overclockers, hmmm....

Re:Market Share

[angle_slam]

I agree. Back when you could overclock a Celeron nearly 50% (from 400 MHz to about 600MHz), there was big benefits from OCing. Now, who really cares if you can get your 2.8 GHz processor to 3.2 GHz. This generation's games don't even push the 2.8 GHz processor that much anyway.

Re:Market Share

[Zareste]

I... think it's their way of saying, 'We've got too many customers. Go away. Buy some faster more competent hardware from a company that's less likely to swindle you. Here, IBM sounds good, doesn't it? Now move along.'

Re:Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel doesn't care for ordinary Joe to liquid cool it's P4 and overclock it to 4+GHZ. They care about motherboard makers making a "high end" product out of a "low/mid range" product. When some motherboard makers transformed the 865 (if I recall correctly) into a much expensive 875 (IIRC) chipset motherboard by simply flipping a switch, it probably got Intel pissed off. Almost same thing can be applied to Radeon X800 Pro and XT Platinum (or whatever the highest end it's called), with a price difference of nearly 100$.

IMHO, in this case, Intel is to blame. If the difference between a low/mid range and high end product is just a switch, or a simple transistor, they shouldn't ask extra money for it, because the features in the low end are only "hidden".

Re:Market Share

[twbecker]

It's not that simple. You're leaving out the fact that some will simply buy the faster (read: higher margin) Intel processor, which I'm sure is what they intend.

Re:Market Share

[Kiryat Malachi]

They don't have to do any extra work to allow overclocking; it's a natural artifact of how the chipmaking process works. All chips, at the start, are capable of being top-speed. After manufacture, they're tested and sorted as to what their actual maximum stable speed is, individually. Because there's no actual die-level differences on these chips, external factors are what tell it how fast to run. You feed it clock and a multiplier number, and it tries to run at that speed, whether or not it actually can.

Basically, it takes no extra work to allow overclocking, but significant extra work to prevent it.

Re: market share

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude...
You need to step away from the computer.

Re:Market Share

[confused one]

It's not that they put in an overclocking mechanism per say. They had simply made the clock multipliers available to the external interface of the chip. It was done as much for their own sake as for any other reason because of the way they sort chips in the factory.

A chip that didn't pass at 800 MHz but did at 700MHz was labeled and sold as a 700MHz unit. Knowing it was a 700MHz processor, you knew what to set the multiplier to... Some of the chips would basically work at 800MHz and so, people would overclock the 700MHz chip to see if they could get any more performance out of it.

Intel's just internalized this functionality... At some point, they closed the multiplier hole and people just started bumping up the front-side bus clock instead. Now they've closed that hole too.

Re:Market Share

[MindStalker]

The overclocking community is very very small when compared to the overall intel market. Though possibly it might slightly hurt their market on the high end chips that gamers buy. I really can't imagine it being a very large market of people that are going to say, no sir, if I can't overclock I won't buy. On the otherhand this market being so small, I really can't imagine why intel would have bothered waisting their time to overclock, unless they are simply testing overclock locks for some type of future in which all their chips are equal, they just clock them differently and sell them at that respective price.

Re:Market Share

[p0rnking]

AMD might be the one that people are turning to, but remember, they have locked their chips in the past (ie: with their durons, you had to use a pencil to connect the bridges on the chip to unlock it).
As for it hurting Intel? I doubt it. I think overall sales would go up a bit.
Personally, if I can overclock my chip by a few hundred Mhz, then thats a few hundred Mhz that I will skip out on buying, until a chip comes out that mine can't compare to.
Besides, a majority of the people who own home based Intel systems, don't even have a clue what "OC" stands for ... the overclockers, and "hardcore" geeks make up a small percentage of overall sales.

Re:Market Share

[morcego]

If the difference between a low/mid range and high end product is just a switch, or a simple transistor, they shouldn't ask extra money for it, because the features in the low end are only "hidden".

I used to think like you do. Unfortunately, there are other issues to consider, besides the production costs. Development costs (the cost of the technology itself) plays a big part on pricing. The fact that the low end product is the high end one with some features disabled (or even burned out) is a move to reduce the production costs, without stopping the offer of the low end model.

So, if they were to remove the price gap, you can rest assured it would be based on the price of the top model, once you pay not only for the production costs, but the features you get.

This is pretty much what you get on the software or consulting industries. Sometime you have to pay extra to have a few features of a given software enabled. Sometimes you will have to pay different price rates for a professional's time, based on the kind of work he will be doing.

Re:Market Share

[dirk]

Sure, very few people will "not buy into" Intel because of this, but ZERO people will buy Intel just because of this. few > ZERO, thus it's a net loss for Intel.

Only if you completely discount the amount of time and money they will save by not having to deal with the overclockers. When a newb overclocks and fries his processor, he calls Intel and complains. People who don't know what they are doing can easily destroy things, and when they do, they will blame it on the "crappy Intel chip" instead of them not knowing what they are doing.

Re:Market Share

[poot_rootbeer]

Do these sorts of things hurt their business?

Doubtful. The only consumers who care if a processor CAN be overclocked are the ones who are GOING TO overclock their processors -- even with the recent OCing popularity boom, I'd doubt that represents more than 1 in every 1,000 CPU sales made.

Furthermore, selling to people who try to overclock ends up inflating the return rates for the product, giving an impression of decreased reliability. If you're an OCer and accidentally burn out an OEM processor within the first week you own it, what do you do -- do you shrug, say "them's the berries," and open your wallet to buy another one, or do you take it back to the store and claim "it was DOA" and try to exchange it or get your money back? Probably not the former.

Re:Market Share

[LordP]

Funny... you'd think Intel would learn from Microsoft's example instead of repeating the same mistakes...

Here's a neat quote that explains this quite well (IMO):

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. -- Douglas Adams"

Re:Market Share

[Jesus_666]

However, more and more people know (and actually think about) overclocking. Back when overclocking gained significant speed boosts, most people didn't know or care about it. Nowadays, ordinary users on ordinary BBSs are talking about whether processor X can be overclocked or if a softmod for GPU Y raises your FPS by 2.
Even if most gamers yre not overclocking, many are thinking about it and a processor that comes without easy overclockability might just not appeal to them - even if they'd never overclock their systems.

Re:Market Share

[Jesus_666]

Almost same thing can be applied to Radeon X800 Pro and XT Platinum (or whatever the highest end it's called), with a price difference of nearly 100$.

AFAIK does this come from the fact that ATI sells models with defects as lower-end models - I remember that one Radeon series' production failures were sold as a lower-end model; many of them had some nonfunctional pipelines but worked just fine when only one was used. So ATI locked most of the pipelines on supposedly defective cards and sold them.
I wouldn't complain; after all this means that you can buy a cheap card and - with some luck - use it as a better one.

Re:Market Share

[bentcd]

If the difference between a low/mid range and high end product is just a switch, or a simple transistor, they shouldn't ask extra money for it, because the features in the low end are only "hidden".

The problem is that the high-end customers are there to help subsidize the low-end customers and if you kill the high-end market by flipping the switch, then the low-end market will need to subsidize itself. The end result will be more expensive hardware for most of us and slightly cheaper hardware for the old high-end customers.

Would you find this desirable?

Re:Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

400 + 50% = 600. Did you skip basic math?

Re:Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when you could overclock a Celeron nearly 50% (from 400 MHz to about 600MHz), there was big benefits from OCing.

Is that your idea of "back in the day"? Man, I remember upping an 8 MHz 80286 to 12 MHz, by physically swapping out the clock crystal on the motherboard. Now that was overclocking.

Re:Market Share

[babyrat]

So I buy a computer - it's got an Intel 2.4 GHz chip in it (theoretically). I notice it runs, but tends to lockupo and do other strange things. I think "Stupid Intel chip - next time I won't buy a computer with an Intel chip".

Little do I know the place I bought it from put in a 1.8 GHz chip and overclocked it to 2.4. Intel just lost a future sale through no fault of its own - well maybe cuz they didn't have this overclocking protection in sooner...

Re:Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think that's "Marketing Math", and yeah, I skipped it.

Re:Market Share

[drsmithy]

Do these sorts of things hurt their business? I wonder how many would not buy into Intle knowing that there are these sorts of things built in? I imagine that the big corps don't care.

It is an interesting exercise in psychology to observe who thinks anti-overclocking capabilities exist to stop them getting that extra 2 FPS in $FIRST_PERSON_SHOOTER and saving a few $$$ vs how many understand it's done so shonky dealers can't sell overclocked machines and devalue Intel's product name.

Re:Market Share

[Requiem18th]

Well yes, see if Intel makes expensive hw for the big boys, the low-end customers will switch to cheapers alternatives, who said every pc has to have an intel? The idea that high-end customers subsidize low-end customers is hilarious: Intel CEO: "Well since we have made a lot of money from the corporate sector we should use all that money to give (crippled) hardware to public sector a la Robin Hood." Come on! the reason why Intel sells cheaper crippled hardware is not because we are "subsidized" is because intel doesn't want you look for alternatives while still selling at higher cost to those who can affort it.

Re:Market Share

[SomeGuyFromCA]

Hey, the 50% oc is still possible. I have a P4 1.6 @ 2.4.

Fortunately (or not) it will probably be my last Intel chip... between LGA (seems overly complex, fragile and highly demanding of fine motor skills) and their plans for huge amounts of power thrown away as heat dissipation, I think they're majorly shooting themselves in the foot.

Re:Market Share

[bentcd]

That may be part of it, but the main reasons are price elasticity and development cost. There are two different market segments out there, and the boys and girls at Intel know it. Their problem is how to cater to both segments - thereby making more money - while avoiding the astronomical development costs that would be involved in having two completely different products. Their answer is to sell one "crippled" line of the product to the low-cost market with a price designed primarily to cover unit production cost (with a markup) and sell the fully functional version to the high-cost market with a price primarily designed to cover the development cost, also with a markup of course.

You see the exact same thing in the software industry. If I buy JBuilder X from Borland, I can basically choose between the low-cost version at $500 or thereabouts, or I can buy the high-cost version at $3000-ish. The different versions are carefully designed so that high-end customers will really _want_ the expensive version because its features cater to high-end needs such as development of scalable server-side web applications while the low-end one contains features for general application development. There is nothing in the production cost that dicates the price difference - it's just a set of CDs either way and if there are a couple of extra CDs in the high-cost version, that hardly costs them $2500 per unit to manufacture. In stead, they create an artificial product divide in order to cater to different market segments, using one of them to help cover the development costs associated with the more pricey parts of the product.

This is going to be an active problem in any industry or in any phase of a business where the development costs completely overshadow the unit production cost. Until such time as the industry or business has managed to cover its development costs, you will see units that are massively overpriced when compared to actual production cost. This creates a dilemma for the manufacturer, because while he might technically make a profit from selling a unit at, say, $100, this is not going to be enough to cover the huge debt he accrued from development by the time the investors will want their money back. The solution to the problem is to create one market that will buy the unit at $1000 and another that can have it for $100. The $1000 market covers your development costs and the $100 market is just gravy. The way to maintain the high-cost market is to do something or other to cripple the low-cost market product so that the high-cost market won't want it.

Re:Market Share

[goatan]

You're leaving out the fact that some will simply buy the faster (read: higher margin) Intel processor, which I'm sure is what they intend.

Who will? the overclocker won't because they will buy AMD and those that don't overclock are not going to buy a more powerful Processesor than they planned to because it can't be overclocked as the post above said Sure, very few people will "not buy into" Intel because of this, but ZERO people will buy Intel just because of this. few > ZERO, thus it's a net loss for Intel.

Re:Market Share

[dave420]

Overclocking doesn't matter to most people. The processor speeds aren't that big a deal. I had some temperature issues on my P4E (prescott - no surprise), so I dropped the clock speed down to 2.6 from 3.2, and I could hardly tell the difference. It's still zippy as all hell (SATA hard disk and DDR ram probably has something to do with that). The CPU is no longer the speed bottleneck it used to be, so squeezing performance out of it isn't important.

Re:Market Share

[goatan]

Little do I know the place I bought it from put in a 1.8 GHz chip and overclocked it to 2.4. Intel just lost a future sale through no fault of its own - well maybe cuz they didn't have this overclocking protection in sooner...

That can't happen Here (UK) well legally any way because they can't take 1.8GHZ clock it to 2.4 GHZ and sell it as a 2.4 GHZ because it's not a 2.4GHZ. Had a situation similar to this about a year ago a friend bought a Time PC (I had strong words with him out that mistake) and it was the situation you described overclocked CPU being sold as higher spec model and it kept crashing. Anyway simply pointed out that they where selling CPU's wrongly labelled and that they where not fit for purpose as it rarely worked for more the 20 minutes. They refunded it without argument they knew they where breaking the law.

Incidentally Intel used to be perfectly happy for these companies to over clock the CPU's as they would rather sell a batch of cheaper chips that might fail when overclocked than not sell chips at all. This happened to Tiny Pc's they started out with reliable and cheap AMD's but got Persuaded to Overclock slightly cheaper lower spec Intel's up to the same spec as the AMD's, with all the problems that brings.

Re:Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from the fact that 400 + 50% isn't anything (50% of what?), and assuming what was meant was 400 + 50% of 400, what should that be in your "real math" if not 600?

Re:Market Share

[bhtooefr]

After manufacture, they're tested and sorted as to what their actual maximum stable speed is, individually.

If that were true, then overclocking couldn't exist (except for slight overclocks within the headroom that the chip maker provides). Overclocking works because sometimes the manufacturer doesn't have demand for the x.xGHz part, and doesn't even test some parts for x.xGHz capability, and instead tests it for y.yGHz capability, where y.y x.x. This is called an economic speed binning. The Celeron 300A and Pentium 4 1.8A were examples of this practice.

Re:Market Share

[Kiryat Malachi]

Even so, the point is that there is no extra design effort required for a chip to support overclocking, while there is a design effort required for a chip to disable it.

Re:Market Share

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, and we're also the ones who thought digital watches were a good idea.

Re:Market Share

[Requiem18th]

But you really think intel is "subsidizing" you? Intel is charging you as much as you can tolerate. Also you seem to think that the low-budget market is not profitable... -it is profitable- because you get to sell thousands of pices, even at a low price you get profit. But that's not the point, the point is that intel doesn't sell cheaper hardware to help you, they just want your money too.

Now, thet's ok for me, it is they right to do whatever they want with the stuff they sell. Also, it is your right to do whatever you want with the stuff you buy. If intel gives up crippling hardware because the overclocking community hacks their boxen (shryeah...), the result WON'T be ultra high costs, they will simply charge us how much as we can tolerate before looking for alternatives, as allways.

The solution is, again, not putting all the eggs in the same basket working toghether to encourage alternatives

Re:Market Share

[bentcd]

Intel is certainly not subsidizing anyone. The high-end market is subsidizing the low-end market. Intel is doing what they do not because they get a warm fuzzy feeling from helping out the little guy but because this approach makes them more money.

So now I can't burn out my processor?

[Trigun]

Sounds fair. Now if only Intel would agree to not abuse this by artificially locking processors to manipulate market prices.

I can hope.

Re:So now I can't burn out my processor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any other reason to "put the lock on overclocking"? Since overclocking voids the warranty, support concerns are not valid.

Re:So now I can't burn out my processor?

[ChrisMaple]

You wish. Tom's Hardware points out that the Intel-supplied fan-heatsink is inadequate.

Re:So now I can't burn out my processor?

[Trigun]

But my 200,000 BTU central Air system works just fine. Want to Lan Party? Bring a Parka!

Re:So now I can't burn out my processor?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how would Intel know if you burned your CPU by overclocking it?

They can test samples back in the lab, and that's probably how they know they are getting overclocked parts returned. But its too late to do anything at that point.

Re:So now I can't burn out my processor?

[haxor.dk]

The answer is putting your money in the coffers of Intel's competitors. Such as AMD.

Re:So now I can't burn out my processor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Real Men measure their air conditioners in tons.

Anything to make a buck...

[Supp0rtLinux]

Sure... wouldn't want to be able to overclock easily... gotta make us upgrade to the next, best, faster CPU. Maybe if AMD stops gaining market share from Intel, Intel will lighten up on those of us that want to overclock.

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[BenjyD]

Would overclocking really hurt Intel's sales of high-end chips much? The kind of person who is going to overclock their processor is doing it because they can't afford the faster processor, or just because they can and want to be l337. Either way, that's not a lost sale.

The only reason I can see for preventing overclocking is to stop resellers selling systems with overclocked chips in to cut costs. You could prevent that by having the BIOS display a big warning message saying "This system is overclocked and may be unstable - phone Intel now" to alert normal users.

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[BabyDave]

Or maybe when AMD continue to gain market share, Intel will stop treating overclockers (many of whom are buying the top-of-the-range CPUs, and pushing them further than Intel do) like thieves ...

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[Malc]

But if it's too easy then increasing numbers of people will become attracted to the idea of saving a couple of hundred dollars...

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[Anonimo Covarde]

Intel is also looking to cut down on RMAs. There are a suprising number of asshats that overclock components then attempt to RMA components that fail. Read any overclocking forum or bbs and you find a fair amount of people that have no problem trying to defraud vendors when they burn their chip out from overclocking/overvolting.

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[banzai51]

This has less to do with the minority of people who OC their home PCs and more to do with dishonest OEMs who sell overclocked systems without telling customers.

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[networkBoy]

Bingo.

I see no reason why my stock price should suffer B/C some 1337 kiddie was lacking in thermodynamics and fried his CPU. I tend to support Intel's move on this.

That is not to say I've never overclocked a CPU though, I managed to get a Katmai (Piii 450-600) up to 1GHz before I traumatized the hardware to the point of complete failure: RAM, CPU, MB Socket, and northbridge chip all dead :-).

just my two cents, -nB

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[DrEldarion]

Yes, I'm sure that's it and not the fact that people try to overclock their chips, burn them out, and then RMA them. If you look around at various message boards, you'll actually see people BRAGGING about how many CPUs they've RMAd until they found one that overclocks as well as they wanted it to.

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[Anonymous Coward]

Would overclocking really hurt Intel's sales of high-end chips much? The kind of person who is going to overclock their processor is doing it because they can't afford the faster processor, or just because they can and want to be l337. Either way, that's not a lost sale.

I don't think that this strategy is directed against your average overclocking 'person'. It more likely has to do with sales contracts to large corporations and governments/governmental entities. And those contracts are big teats that Intel likely wants to milk by this prevention mechanism.

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[arhar]

What of people who overclock the best CPU's available to reach performance level still unavailable in non-overclocked chips?

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[Alexis de Torquemada]

The only reason I can see for preventing overclocking is to stop resellers selling systems with overclocked chips in to cut costs. You could prevent that by having the BIOS display a big warning message saying "This system is overclocked and may be unstable - phone Intel now" to alert normal users.

They would require agreements with all BIOS vendors to do that (somebody pointed out that resellers could hack the BIOS but that's illegal - they would be asking for trouble). However, I think it's Intel's own fault that vendors can overclock and advertise the chips with the new clockrates. After all, they are correct about the increased clockrates, so Intel has no legal resort. If I sell processor which Intel gave a 1.6GHz rating overclocked to 2GHz and advertise them as 2GHz processors, Intel may protest, but they are processors running at 2GHz.

Compare that to AMD, who are in a better position with their rating numbers. Since they're a part of the processor name, you can't just sell an overlocked "Athlon XP 2400+" as an "Athlon XP 2800+", since that would constitute outright fraud. And no vendor would use the clockrate to advertise AMD processors, since even overclocked it's not higher than the corresponding rating number.

Re:Anything to make a buck...

[plutoiddiamonds]

Who really cares about overclocking since CPUs are so cheap!

so there's a 'lock'..

[gl4ss]

..and 'only' some manufacturers ALREADY know how to get around it.

newsflash, some manufactures have not ever supported overclocking of any sort..

so there's a lock, but there isn't? that's the point of this? it's not like you could blindly choose what motherboard to get before if you were going to overclock it since some of them didn't really support it at..

AMD fanboys everywhere

[gooberguy]

Rejoice!

Re:AMD fanboys everywhere

[Luveno]

Given the monster HSF on most Athlons, "fanboy" takes on a double meaning.

Re:AMD fanboys everywhere

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

And P4 CPUs don't require a monster HSF? I guess both brands have their "fanboys", eh?

Re:AMD fanboys everywhere

[AntiOrganic]

Give me a break. Athlons haven't run hot since Palomino, and the Athlon 64s are the coolest chips on the market right now, especially compared to those monster Prescotts.

Re:AMD fanboys everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously have not put together an Intel P4 lately!

The heatsink that they ship with the P4 OEM kit is humongous. The OEM fan included with my son's AMD 3000+ was much smaller. Fanboys indeed!

To Intel's credit, I recently built 7 P4's (building a cluster, got a deal on P4's; no vendor bias here) and every CPU idles at ~45C. These are 2.4G, 400 M FSB with 512k cache.

Re:AMD fanboys everywhere

[Triffid_Hunter]

its a pity that intel chips are currently taking somewhere around 20% more power than athlons of the same performance, and instead of using proper cooling, cripple themselves when they think they're getting hot...

there's an athlon xp 2400+ and a p4 2400 in our house.. my athlon has a smaller heatsink, a quieter fan, and the p4 runs about 15 degrees warmer than it... (my athlon is currently ambient+8, the intel is ambient+20)

so now tell me about those monster HSFs ;)

News Flash

[MachineShedFred]

Company restricts product in an artificial way, and other people find ways around it.

In other news, people breathe.

Re:News Flash

[OverlordQ]

People breathe!? Good God what is this country coming to!

*runs to go turn grandma's oxygen back on*

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you want to be a pessimist...

Re:News Flash

[Alexis de Torquemada]

Don't worry, when the Bush government finally privatizes air, many people will not be able to afford breathing.

Over Clocking is over Rated

[Captain BooBoo]

I have been over clocking since the 486 SX and I can say its all just a fun game. You will NEVER have the stability and it just does not make sense to do any more. If you can't aford to buy a chip fast enough to do whatever job you need it to do then you need to rethink what you're doing. Granted it was "fun" and "neat" to put one over on the chip makers but in the end its all just meh.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[swv3752]

Especially now when the real world performance gain is just not there. When overclocking a 300mhz chip to 500mhz gave significant performance boost. Now that we have Ghz+ chips and squeezing another 100mhz gives a few percentage point points more performance. So now it will take 1 second less time to encode an mp3 or mpeg? I know have to take superhuman steps to cool the processor. I'll stick with stock speeds and have a quieter PC to boot thanks.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Billobob]

Thats just flat out wrong. My friend purchased one of the athlon XP-2500 mobiles for ~$90 a couple months ago (stock at 1.83 ghz), and managed to overclock it to 2.6ghz with the same stability as the processor is stock, and nearly 800mhz is nothing to scoff at - it managed to be the small advantage he needed to run UT2K4 in 1600x1200 smoothly, and improved multitasking slightly. If its just for home use, then overclocking is a fun crapshoot - sometimes its a bust, but often you can gain a significant improvement out of your processor. Of course nobody would overclock any system that requires total stability and 24/7 uptime, but for your typical home PC a little experimenting couldn't hurt as long as you know what you are doing.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Anonymous Coward]

Overclocking isn't overrated, every so often.

Why? Every so often, Intel releases a clocked-down chip from a better batch or ships new tech that's nowhere near pushing its limits.

My two favorite examples:

#1. Celeron 300A - This was the first batch of Celeron chips with L2 cache, clocked at the chip speed. The 300A was 66 x 4.5, Intel had just released the BX chipset with 100 MHz FSB. 300A's ran at 100 x 4.5, often with no stability concerns.

#2. Pentium III 700 Coppermine Core - This was a relabeled 933 MHz chip. Literally, they took chips from P3-933 batches and sold them as 700's. The multipliers were the same (7 x 100 vs 7 x 133). Another chip that ran a lot faster than it was labelled.

I had PC's built on tight budgets that used these chips. I was happy with both, and both are still stable to this day. YMMV.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[hawkbug]

Yes, I also have the 2500+ and it's amazing that it can go that high - if you get the mobile version, and you got a good one. I don't have the mobile, so I haven't tried to mess with it, but even at 1.83, it runs very cool for me - and having a quiet pc is more important than fast for me these days.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[ItMustBeEsoteric]

I don't agree with that at all. I have an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ running at well over what's considered 3200+, and no voltage core increase. A few good fans, and my temperature is about 107F right now.

Oh, and my uptime IN WINDOWS is about a month.

Less stable my ass. You're just not doing it right.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Aardpig]

Oh, and my uptime IN WINDOWS is about a month.

No, your uptime is actually 24.2 days, it's just that the clock has been overclocked too...

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Anonymous Coward]

it managed to be the small advantage he needed to run UT2K4 in 1600x1200 smoothly,
LMAO.

guys like your buddy are the ones I make fun of at lan parties...

I play UT2K4 on a Pentium III 866 at 1024X768 smoothly and I crank it down to 800x600 and turn off all goodies when I want to royally kick the arses of the n00b's with the fly computers. (nothing like 150FPS to give you responsiveness that the dewwbs with all the goodies turned on dont have.)

Yes I use a high end Nvidia card, and I still wax the kiddies with their 3X more machine than mine plus make them look downright silly.... espically cince mine starts and I'm in playing BEFORE they are due to my other advantages built in.

anyways, your friend is a fool, tell hime to buy a decent video card FIRST then worry about processor speed.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[gooberguy]

You will NEVER have the stability and it just does not make sense to do any more.

Actually, it's very easy to buy an inexpensive chip that can be overclocked easily. Just get a Celeron. I bought a 1.2Ghz Celeron processor, and I've overclocked it to 1.55Ghz (129Mhz FSB) with no problems at all. I didn't need extra cooling or other special hardware, and the machine is very stable, even though the PC133 RAM is running at 167Mhz (my bios is stupid and adds more than 33Mhz to the RAM speed). I've never had a problem with overheating or instability, ever. I run Prime95 constantly (I leave my computer on all the time) and if you think I use some amazing CPU cooler, I don't. Here are pictures of my case. I only have room for a 1U CPU cooler, so although my CPU runs at 48C constantly, it's never hicupped. As to your comment about not having a noticable speed increase, the reason I overclock is so that Battlefield: Vietnam and UT2K4 will run on my puny system. At stock speed, the games run just a little choppy, but after overclocking they are playable at my LCD's native resolution. So although you may have had bad experiences with overclocking, there are many others who have had success.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[gooberguy]

Oh yeah, and ignore those pics of the potato cannon.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Captain BooBoo]

ItMustBeEsoteric (732632) said..."Less stable my ass. You're just not doing it right."

how can you sleep at night making a blanket statement like that? Yea your right, all the extra money you spent on case mods and fans and bla bla bla is WAY cheaper than just buying a system designed to go fast I bought a GX270 with the 2.4 HT proc and it makes almost ZERO noise and runs perfectly. I paid less that $300 US for it and it makes almost ZERO noise. I can't even hear it running. Your comment on uptime is a lame attempt to troll me...since when did up time matter on a desk top/non server system?

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Billobob]

He has a radeon 9700pro, and only runs 1600x1200 when playing public multiplayer games and such (~40-60 fps is considered smooth). Of course he turns it down when he plays seriously.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah pushing a system beyond its specs can't hurt.
{Cranks up his 5 GHz computer with 100,000 rpm hard drive}
inautable mumbling is heard over the roar of the computer
{computer explodes}
{police find greasy spot and lots of fried electronics}

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[ItMustBeEsoteric]

You commented on stability, uptime is the easiest measure of stability, I gave my uptime as the easiest measure of my stability.

Extra fans cost me maybe $40. The Silent Boost is also rather quiet, as are the 120MM fans that turn nice and slow and move lots of air.

And I suppose uptime doesn't matter if stability doesn't. But wasn't that the whole point?

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[macklin01]

That just isn't so.

The key to a successful overclock is to test, test, and test until you've found the top end of the stable range, and then back down a bit. An overclock that isn't stable isn't a successful overclock.

I overclock a P4 3.0C to 3.5 GHz and use it for long-term computational biophysics. (Numerical simulation of tumor growth and chemotherapy.) It's amazing what a difference a 17% speed boost can make in a 7-day calculation. I've tested both the memory and the CPU for stability and can vouch for it. Overclocking isn't just for games; it can make the hardware you can afford more productive for real work. It sure helped me to get my research done more quickly for my master's thesis.

Other people are using overclocked computers for useful things all the time. Consider the thousands who use overclocked computers to pump out WU's for Stanford's protein folding project (find out how proteins fold and misfold, help cure diseases, etc.). The top-producing teams are overclockers.au, HardOCP (lots of overclockers), and overclockers.com at Number 3.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[tricops]

This is completely unrelated, but I happened to catch Zoolander last night and that just reminded me of the "freak gasoline fight accident" for some reason. "These kinda things just happen, you have no control over them!" ha ha...

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[devphaeton]

Oh, and my uptime IN WINDOWS is about a month.


Going a month without doing Windows Update is not recommended

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[kju]

You must be a fool to do science on a system you are running outside of specification. It is a fact, that overclocking can cause miscalculations etc. which might not always be detected.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Anonymous Coward]

I cant remember the last time a Windows Update patch has required a reboot. I would guess that it has been at least 6 months. Every couple of weeks, the update notification pops up, I install, and continue on.

Or were you just talking out of your ass?

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[HolyCoitus]

From overclocking, you can, in a stable manner, gain a gigahertz on some chips on different cooling, saving you money in the end. Not to mention, it's fun. I have my Athlon mobile 2500 running on air at 38C clocking from 1.8 Ghz to 2.4. I have the alarm at freaking 55, and haven't hit it yet. I've found that I can get it up to 2.8 Ghz without the chip having a problem, but the memory fails then because of the frontside bus. This all with a 30 dollar heatsink and a 90 dollar chip.

Overclocking is worth it on chips that are made well.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[macklin01]

The point you are trying to emphasize is a good one, but as I mentioned before, the key is testing. I've tested the code on this machine for problems that have analytical solutions, and the results agreed with the expected order of accuracy. The results also matched those obtained with non-overclocked machines.

The fact of the matter is, most machines aren't actually running precisely at spec. Do you really think that your machine is running with a precise FSB of 200.00 MHz (or whatever the spec FSB is for your machine)? It's not uncommon to see 1-5% variation on machines running "at spec".

I'm not shooting for the moon here. I'm applying a moderate overclock that's well within the range expected for this architecture (officially up to 3.6 GHz for the Northwood core), and I'm exercising due caution by conducting extensive testing.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Anonymous Coward]

All but the last Win2K update I've done has required a reboot, and they've been once a month like clockwork.

Perhaps you are running OS X and just can't tell the difference? :P

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Anonymous Coward]

YOU SIR ARE A MORON

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[abertoll]

Not all chips are created equal. Just because your friend happened to get lucky and had a stable overclocked chip at such a high speed doesn't mean it can happen frequently.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[swv3752]

Sure there are some CPUs that you can push far. But you have to have a bit of luck in picking out the right one. But for many, you have to mess with core voltages and higher heat for a lousy 100-200mhz.

For real world performance, faster memory and hard drives and video will give a better price/performance ratio.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Alexis de Torquemada]

A few good fans, and my temperature is about 107F right now.

You need to see a doctor. Quick!

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[bprime]

I think all overclockers realize it's a big pissing contest. On the other hand, when I go to a LAN party, having paid roughly the same for my box as everyone else yet having an extra ghz to show for it, it really makes the ol' PC-enis feel nice and hefty.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[poot_rootbeer]

My friend purchased one of the athlon XP-2500 mobiles for ~$90 a couple months ago (stock at 1.83 ghz), and managed to overclock it to 2.6ghz with the same stability as the processor is stock

And how much is the processor's lifespan shortened by the additional stress of overclocking?

Granted, if a CPU would normally last 10 years before failing, and overclocking brings that down to 5 years, but you upgrade hardware every 3 years, it doesn't really matter. But let's not neglect to mention that just because a component seems to be performing well outside of spec today, that it always will.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Cryect]

In general WinXP hasn't required reboots and for those that it has normally you can get away with shutting down the appropriate service and restarting it (most the updates do that automatically now). But, yeah can't remember the last time I've seen an update that actually required a reboot so it could modify files then.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Jesus_666]

Not all chips are created equal.

I believe there should be an Amendment concerning this.
Equal rights for all chips! Down with rac-- er, chipism!

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Anonymous Coward]

I do lots of science of overclockable systems. Of course they aren't overclocked. I've found overclocking forums to be the best place to learn about which systems are the most stable. Overclockers are always looking for systems with a lot of head room. I want that kind of system. Sure, I don't need good CPU fans, Intel says the stock ones are fine. Which do you feel your data is safer with: an system that crashes at a 5% higher clock speed or a system than can run 50% higher.

If you build computers, you should learn how to overclock, even if you don't plan to do it.

The only down side is that overclockers want unlocked motherboards, etc and they might not be the most stable. Still, they'll always tell you which chipset is the most solid.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[Anonymous Coward]

That is true but the reason they were sold as lesser chips is because they fail to pass the quality tests at higher speeds.

While it may work overclocked you had a much higher chance of chip failure in your example. Of course you would just blame Windows for being unstable. :)

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[mvpll]

Yep, and as soon as you throw in disk access, CPU and memory speed become almost redundant.

One advantage of over clocking is that is allows under clocking. For those of us without air conditioning in hot climates the ability to seasonally adjust heat output of the CPU is a bonus.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[drsmithy]

Ah, yes, I remember these. #1. Celeron 300A - This was the first batch of Celeron chips with L2 cache, clocked at the chip speed. The 300A was 66 x 4.5, Intel had just released the BX chipset with 100 MHz FSB. 300A's ran at 100 x 4.5, often with no stability concerns.

Got one of these right after the first reports started filtering in and the legendary Abit BH6 to go with it. Still running like a trooper after - what would it be - ~5 years of overclocked usage ? Tkae that Intel QA processes !

#2. Pentium III 700 Coppermine Core - This was a relabeled 933 MHz chip. Literally, they took chips from P3-933 batches and sold them as 700's. The multipliers were the same (7 x 100 vs 7 x 133). Another chip that ran a lot faster than it was labelled.

Got two of these babies to put into an Asus P2BDS. I was shattered when they could only get to 783Mhz :(.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[HolyCoitus]

You're completely missing the point... Faster memory? Ok, 300 dollars. Better hard drive? Ok, 100 dollars. New video card? 300 dollars. Add that up? 700 dollars. Overclocking? Free.

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[MoronGames]

A great way to test that the processor is making correct calculations at a given speed is using Prime 95 which can be had at: http://www.mersenne.org/

Re:Over Clocking is over Rated

[goatan]

since when did up time matter on a desk top/non server system?

Whenever anyone is using it very annoying to have it crash half way through something your doing. How can you sleep at night with a blanket statement like that?

Oh...

[intuit]

So the FASTEST chips are supposed to be unoverclockable. Dang. Now I can't oc that 3.6GHz chip. :(

WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[piecewise]

Sorry, Intel, but you're keeping us from overclocking chips when you yourself have created some of the most inefficient (in terms of optimal performance and energy/heat useage) microprocessor of anyone this decade?

They've been hanging out with Microsoft too long.

That's like a car manufacturer saying, "We've installed a mechanism which will keep you from opening the hood if your intention is to upgrade the engine, because we want you leasing and buying new expensive cars very soon."

Uhhh, f*ck off.

Re:WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[Psymunn]

Actually I thought it would be more like putting a speed governor on a car. Good thing that never happens...

Re:WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[Tony Hoyle]

Good thing too otherwise you could get into a situation when the governor cut in when you were overtaking... that's why they were ditched as they are dangerous.

Re:WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[gmhowell]

That's like a car manufacturer saying, "We've installed a mechanism which will keep you from opening the hood if your intention is to upgrade the engine, because we want you leasing and buying new expensive cars very soon."

It already exists to some degree in the form of ODB II. Draconian engine management mandated by the federal government in the US (I assume the EU has something similar?) Yeah, you can open the hood and futz around a little, but anything beyond a header will likely require some computer voodoo that is a little more involved.

Re:WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[kannibal_klown]

Sorry, Intel, but you're keeping us from overclocking chips when you yourself have created some of the most inefficient (in terms of optimal performance and energy/heat useage) microprocessor of anyone this decade?

Excuse me? But if you're going to make rediculous statements like that, take a course in history.

Back in the AMD T-Bird day's, those things ran HOT AS SH!T, even with a premium 3rd-party heatsink. Meanwhile, Intel's equivalent CPU (though more expenisve) ran a hell of a lot cooler with a generic heatsink.

From what I hear now, the playing field is more level (a friend even told me AMD is actually cooler than Intel now).

But it wasn't that long ago that AMD was a joke in terms of thermal performance, as they used to run hot as hell, and only somewhat recently started to include thermal control into their chips.

Re:WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[ms139us]

That's like a car manufacturer saying, "We've installed a mechanism which will keep you from opening the hood if your intention is to upgrade the engine, because we want you leasing and buying new expensive cars very soon."

Or it is more like a car manufacturer saying, "The engine is tuned to handle X. If you put a blower or nitrous on it and ramp up the output, you are on your own, no warranty. If you buy a 200 HP Hondaccord, we will ensure that it has the actual 200 HP engine, and not a modified 120 HP engine that will fail sooner."

I would bet this is only to stem companies selling overclocked boxes and advertising them at the overclocked speed. Neither Intel nor the customer wins in this scenario. They are probably just stopping fraud.

Re:WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure many cars still have governors in some form. My dad said that some guy at the BMW plafce said that the chip doesn't allow the car to go faster than x miles per hour (x being some large epough nhumber that it doesn't really matter if you follow the law) Then again, the same guy said that you could mod it to allow you to go faster.

Re:WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, yeah. Intel spends more money on R&D in a month that you will ever see your entire life, and you somehow think you are qualified to call their stuff "inefficient"?

Re:WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[John Courtland]

I wouldn't go so far as to call it Draconian. It doesn't really "record" anything like a black box, except for diagnostic error codes. It's a really great system for finding all the garbage that goes wrong with sensors without having to manually test them.

Re:WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[Alexis de Torquemada]

This limit is at 250kph, or about 156mph. They are not legally obliged to limit the speed of their cars, but they're doing it as part of a voluntary self-regulation agreement with other producers. If a customer does want to go even faster, the chip is easy to remove or override (dunno how they do it exactly).

And thus far, there is no general speed limit on German highways ("Autobahnen"). On many Autobahn sections, there are specific limits, but on other sections, you're allowed to go as fast as your car manages to, and even faster than 250kph.

The analogy to chips is somewhat flawed, though, since you can hardly harm other people by overclocking your PC, as opposed to driving too fast.

Re:WHOA. Wait just a fortnight here.

[gmhowell]

Particularly in areas with regular emissions testing, OBD-II has put the clamp on many modifications.

But, yeah, it turns out to have not been as bad as we feared in the early 90's. OBD-III, OTOH...

I tried and tried...

[ErichTheWebGuy]

but can find no practical reason for this that makes sense to me. The people who overclock know that they can burn up their chip, and the people who do not overclock don't have to worry about it. I guess maybe a small percentage of people might go poking around in CMOS setup and change the clock speed, but is that number large enough to alienate gamers and hackers who want control over their own boxes? I think not.

*grabs ankles* Thanks again, Intel. Gimme on-board DRM and I will be a happy camper.

Re:I tried and tried...

[Dielectric]

It's probably to prevent re-marking gray-market CPUs as faster chips, which burn out, get returned, and cause problems for the reseller and for Intel. Not every move by a corporate is evil, ya know. It would be more difficult than it's worth to make an OC-friendly chip that is un-remark-able. This is a sizeable problem for AMD, but the laser-trim bridges are a decent solution, to which they probably have a patent so Intel has to come up with something else now.

Re:I tried and tried...

[PCM2]

but can find no practical reason for this that makes sense to me. The people who overclock know that they can burn up their chip, and the people who do not overclock don't have to worry about it. I guess maybe a small percentage of people might go poking around in CMOS setup and change the clock speed, but is that number large enough to alienate gamers and hackers who want control over their own boxes? I think not.

It's not to limit individual customers who bought the chips fair and square. It's to crack down on "grey market" resellers who buy chips at a certain clock frequency, overclock them, and then relabel them as higher-speed chips. Whose responsibility is it to honor the warranty when one of those melts down? No matter the outcome, it's going to be bad for Intel -- either in terms of cash or customer relations.

Re:I tried and tried...

[pclminion]

The people who overclock know that they can burn up their chip

Maybe Intel is just tired of accomodating people who burn their chip up trying to overclock it, then think to themselves, "Hey, I can just blame this on a faulty heatsink." God forbid they actually admit that they blew a hundred bucks on a chip and proceded to burn it to a crisp for a piddly 5% performance boost.

If you burn up your chip and then lie to Intel in order to get a replacement, you're a loser, you're ripping Intel off, and you're fucking it up for everyone else by forcing Intel to implement anti-overclocking provisions such as this one.

Having said that, people always figure a way around the limitations anyway.

Re:I tried and tried...

[ErichTheWebGuy]

It's to crack down on "grey market" resellers

I realize that, but is this the best way to go about it? IMHO, this only irritates users, who then run crying to AMD. There should be a better way, like revoking whatever reseller license Intel gives to these people (if they even give such a license, I don't know), or displaying something on the display at post "cpu overclocked!!!" or something. That way the bad-guy resellers won't last for very long, as they are now exposed for ripping people off.

It still makes absolutely no sense to me that Intel would punish end-users for the actions of a shady reseller.

Re:I tried and tried...

[Anonymous Coward]

> IMHO, this only irritates users, who then run crying to AMD

Every cheap, dodgy, unstable AMD system shipped is an living advertisement for Intel Inside. AMD is still recovering from the damage done to their brand in the K6 and early Athlon era by bad-guy resellers and cheap mobos.

Re:I tried and tried...

[grahamoconnor]

'It's to crack down on "grey market" resellers'

So now you're down on selling to Senior Citizens?
Hell, if the oldies want to overclock their copy of Word and get rest-home respect then I say let 'em

How Long?

[BlindSpy]

How long before every semi-hacker knows how to unlock their intel chip to over clock it. When has locking anything kept anyone out?

Re:How Long?

[Paladine97]

If you RTFA, you'd realize that motherboard makers already have figured out how to unlock it.

Re:How Long?

[confused one]

If it's done on the silicon and it's not accessible from the outside, there's no way a semi-hacker could ever get to it.

Now, being a professional... : )

as if...

[colinleroy]

...as if it was still useful at speeds above 3GHz.

Re:as if...

[halivar]

...as if it was still useful at speeds above 3GHz.

Amen, brother. And let's not forget the whole RAM debacle. Some of those silly nay-sayers are still carping on about needing more than 640K of memory.

People just need to learn to run ONE application at a time, like any other normal, rational human being! Sheesh, the GUI business has ruined you kids.

The new processor

[AviLazar]

I was not very impressed with the ratings of the new processor. While it has a little bit of improvement - you really need to get a completely revamped system (mother board, memory at the minimum - but you want a video card to be able to utilize the new speed). I believe even SATA hard drives had some problems.
Not to mention that the fastest P4 runs at 35 degrees centigrade, while this processor runs at 70 degrees. That is a major problem, imho, for a marginal increase.
Overall, this is not impressive technology. They rushed the material out. I referenced my information from Toms Hardware.

I'm surprised it took this long...

[big_groo]

Remember when they locked the multiplier on their CPUs? The only reason they did this was to sell 'faster' chips. Celeron 300A anyone?

Re:I'm surprised it took this long...

[pclminion]

Celeron 300A anyone?

Heh! My website still runs on a dual Celeron 300A box. A few months ago I finally had to clock it back down to 300, because the fans are starting to gunk up and can't cool it properly at 450 anymore.

I expect those things to keep chugging along for another five years, at least...

Re:I'm surprised it took this long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Celeron 300A anyone?

mmm...Still have mine, and it's still running at 450 MHz.. it's a little unstable but only when the room gets too hot (houston's summers don't help a bit :))

Intel's mistake was our gain.

Re:I'm surprised it took this long...

[Billobob]

This isn't talking about multiplier lock - with very few exceptions, almost ALL of the pentium 4 line were multiplier locked - Intel never stopped doing that once they started. The only new processors which are completely unlocked are the Athlon 64 FXs, although the regular 64s have all their lower multipliers unlocked (so you can still reach higher FSB even after the raw mhz limit has been reached)>

Re:I'm surprised it took this long...

[the quick brown fox]

Actually, mobile Athlon XP's are also multiplier unlocked, work in any motherboard that can take a desktop Barton, and only cost a couple of bucks more than the equivalently rated desktop model.

I think mobile Athlon 64's let you change the multiplier also, but doesn't let you set it higher than the stock setting. Not sure if that helps any for overclocking purposes.

makes my choice easier

[cipher uk]

well now i don't even have to think about "intel or amd ?". If Intel want to prevent me overclocking a chip i paid for i will prevent giving them money.

It's not like anyone blaims Intel when someone kills an Intel processor by over-clocking it. I don't see any reason behind the prevention of over-clocking other than to try and make people have to upgrade more often or maybe because they want to lose marketshare.

Argh... english!

[Quixote]

From the article:
If the CPU clock exceeds the threshold ... , the required PLL (Phase Lock Loop) will reset and won't refuse to lock that frequency.

What is it? Will it lock the frequency? Will it not refuse to lock the frequency? Will it? Won't it???

Re:Argh... english!

[Adalgar]

I don't see nothing wrong with that statement.

Re:Argh... english!

[BabyDave]

Try this:

... the required PLL will reset and won't not refuse to reverse-unlock that frequency

Clearer?

Re:Argh... english!

[Kevinv]

it's a double negative.

If something "won't refuse" to do something, then it will do it. The sentence should either be "the required PLL (Phase Lock Loop) will reset and refuse to lock that frequency." or it should be "the required PLL (Phase Lock Loop) will reset and won't lock that frequency." but the way they wrote it means "the required PLL (Phase Lock Loop) will reset and will lock that frequency."

Re:Argh... english!

[Kevinv]

god i'm a retard. I just got the joke. no more cough medicine for me today (hmmm, or maybe more!)

Re:Argh... english!

[Paulrothrock]

In that case we'd just have to randomly fluctuate the field harmonics while flooding the deck with theta radiation and subjecting the processor to a stream of chroniton particles in reverse polarity. That's so simple an ensign could do it!

[/Star Trek Solution]

Re:Argh... english!

[mikael]

From the article, the intention is for the PLL to reset, but not complain about the changed frequency. For someone writing an overclocking utility, they would want to know whether the change had been accepted or not. By creating this uncertainty, they make it harder to write such an application.

Of course, Intel haven't made it impossible. There is bound to be some workaround to get the current configuration settings back out.

Re:Argh... english!

[SydShamino]

This isn't off-topic, and the mod that rated it as such should be ashamed of themselves.

This sentence is the core of the story around which this article is based. The fact that it is worded so poorly as to imply the complete opposite of the intent of the story makes this worthwhile.

Re:Argh... english!

[bestguruever]

I ... um ... have a cold. Which brand are you using?

LOCKOUT?

[Anonymous Coward]

I DONT SEE WY WINTEL CARES IF I OVERCLOACK MY COMPUTAR! ITS MY WARRANTY I AM FEEDING TO TEH THERMAL DIETY!

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ff ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Re:LOCKOUT?

[Anonymous Coward]

you are why kids on the short bus should not be allowed on the computer...

please put your helmet back on and play nice with the other "special children"

I'm thinking we need to up your medication also....

It's official; Netcraft confirms; Intel is dying

[W2k]

Multiplier locks on new chipsets - in effect, new CPU's? AMD's Athlon FX is completely unlocked. How is Intel going to compete by continuing to offer an inferior product?

this makes sense...

[mumblestheclown]

because people overclock their systems and then try to claim warranty repair. sometimes, the overclocking is done by a middleman who re-labels chips. when the chip melts, the ball falls somewhere between intel and the innocent but bilked customer. this helps cut down on that.

Re:this makes sense...

[FauxPasIII]

> sometimes, the overclocking is done by a middleman who re-labels chips

I've heard Intel make this claim for years, but never heard of any actual cases of it taking place...
does this actually happen? Neither google nor snopes can settle whether this is real or myth.

Re:this makes sense...

[Wesley Felter]

sometimes, the overclocking is done by a middleman who re-labels chips

That was foiled years ago by multiplier locking. Frequency locking (which is the issue now) does not affect relabeling (because it doesn't happen anyway).

Re:this makes sense...

[Smallpond]

A while back, I was at a fair where the guy had speeds written in pencil on the chips he was selling. He had tested the max speed they would run and sold them accordingly, even though they were all marked as slower parts. But he was upfront about what he was doing and that there was no guarantee. His "test" consisted of bringing up Word and some game. I thought it was a reasonable value-add. Intel evidently doesn't.

Re:this makes sense...

[servognome]

Its a known issue in the industry. Seems like Intel & AMD go back and forth locking and unlocking their chips.

Re:this makes sense...

[FauxPasIII]

Heh, fair enough. I see your point, though.. knowing which of a stack of 2.0ghz-marked chips was far enough above spec to run okay at 2.8 would be beneficial to me, and I don't even overclock... I just want really, really stable, above-spec chips when I can get them.

Agreed

[mfh]

Why Intel bothered to lock these chips from overclocking doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe they want to ensure that users are getting what they pay for, and not more, but if it can be unlocked easily enough, I don't see why Intel would bother. It doesn't seem like best practice is being utilized in this kind of prohibitive design mechanism.

Re:Agreed

[nelsonal]

Several years ago some white box OEMs were selling overclocked systems as though they contianed the rated chip. I don't know how common it was, but that was the offical reason that Intel clamped down hard on the practice. When it was just geeks in their houses saving a few bucks it was a minor loss (probably good advertising--Intel generally has the better manufacturing process and most overclocking headroom), once frad was diluting their brand and really reducing revenue they stepped in and put a stop to the practice.

Re:Agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

However, if this is the *real* reason, then surely this is met by one of the following ideas (there are probably plenty more):

1) Report the *attributed* speed in the BIOS bootup (you can then see what the rating is even if it is overclocked)
2) Flag something saying that the CPU is overspecced

These allow users to overclock, but stops retailers cheating.

Re:Agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

because noone can hack a bios its completely hard!

Re:Agreed

[homer_ca]

"Several years ago some white box OEMs were selling overclocked systems as though they contianed the rated chip."

It happened to my mom. She bought a Pentium 120 system from some mom and pop white box store. Years later when I upgraded it I took it apart and found the CPU was an overclocked P100. They even covered the bottom of the chip with a warranty void if removed sticker to stop you from looking, those fuckers. The rest of the box was a piece of shit too. All the cheapest no name parts you could imagine. Still, that was many years ago. With multiplier locking, it's pretty obvious if anyone tried to sell an overclocked CPU. The only people Intel is stopping with this are the overclocking enthusiasts, not the fraudsters.

Re:Agreed

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Maybe they want to ensure that users are getting what they pay for, and not more

Ummm, I was under the impression that they were paying for a whole pile of transistors and some copper (at lowest detail). Surely pumping more current/voltage through said bunch of transistors is still only getting what you paid for, you're just using it to it's full potential.
I paid for a bunch of transistors which, when used optimally, will run at speed X, whether or not speed X is what Intel tells me that it will do.
Now, if I was activating a transporter device which stole additional transistors from Intel HQ and put them onto the chip, that would be getting more than I paid for.
If it was there when I bought the thing then I paid for it, whether or not you told ME that it was there, YOU knew that you were selling me the extra capacity.

Re:Agreed

[TheSunborn]

Well, that's the mistake. What you are really paying for is mostly the development of the processor.

Re:Agreed

[HangingChad]

Maybe they're planning on squashing the publication of the unlocking mechanism by calling it a DMCA violation that's skirting a security feature.

It does seem strange that Intel would do something that will certainly drive the technical hobby market to AMD without much benefit to them that I can see.

Who knows. Corporate behavior doesn't always make sense.

Re:Agreed

[Anonymous Coward]

What was the name of the store?

First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[LordKazan]

First It comes out that Intel's making Dual Core Prescotts what would do better as hotplates than processors, and now they're announcing that they're preventing you from overclocking?

Will someone PLEASE remind me of Why I would ever pay $499 for a Pentium 4 3.4Ghz Prescot, or $990 for an 800Mhz 2MB Extreme? I can hop over to AMD and get a better processor for less, and to boot I can overclock it if I want!

Intel = Morons

Re:First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[Generic Guy]

First It comes out that Intel's making Dual Core Prescotts what would do better as hotplates than processors, and now they're announcing that they're preventing you from overclocking?

I would think there is more than a casual relationship between the two, perhaps just to prevent their "hotplates" from becoming open-flame barbeque pits.

Re:First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[LordKazan]

I was thinking that - but i was trying to be funny, instead I got voted insightful, lol!

Re:First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[evilviper]

I can hop over to AMD and get a better processor for less, and to boot I can overclock it if I want!

AMD chips do have some limitations...

First, they may have a lower maximum heat rating, but they never idle, even if you aren't using at CPU power at all. Intel has an advantage there. Check out my journal for more info.

P4 processors support much faster memory than AMD's current 32-bit chips. You can get an Intel chip with 800MHz FSB that trounces AMD in memory speed (mainly because of Intel's dual-channel memory controller).

It wasn't long ago that Toms Hardware had a comparison of what happens when AMD/Intel processors loose their heatsink. AMD chips fried, while Intel either slowed to a crawl, or halted to prevent self-destruction. It was a while back now, but I've never heard of AMD fixing the problem. So, Intel might have an advantage, in that their systems don't get destroyed if the heatsink falls off during shipping, etc.

Intel has an advantage in the physical properties as well. The have a protective covering over their CPU cores, so it's much harder to damage/destroy it. I've personally never chipped an AMD CPU core, despite putting together hundreds of systems, but never the less, some people say it's a big deal for them, and AMD has followed suit as of their Opteron line, by protecting the core as Intel currently does.

With all that said, I'm just playing devil's advocate to make it a fair conversation. I will still stick with AMD...

The power management problem isn't much of an issue if you make sure to get a motherboard that handles the S2K bus disconnect issue, and if not, you might be able to use fvcool to solve the problem.

The faster memory is quite nice, but not worth the HUGE price premium. If I required memory that fast, I'd probably spend the same ammount of money getting a faster and better AMD64 Opteron, rather than a slower, less advanced, more power hungry 32-bit P4.

The heatsink issues makes little difference to me, as I install them properly, and check them after moving my systems. There are also heatsinks that now screw into the motherboard, so a broken plastic socket clip is not a problem.

AMD CPUs are a bit more vulnerable, but I've still never chipped a CPU core, despite putting together hundreds of AMD system. So, non-issue.

Re:First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[LordKazan]

Devil's advocates are always welcome!

AMD-compatable motherboards now have circuitry that instantly shuts the system off if the temp goes above so much - prevents being fried by no heatsink (and yes I have toasted a processor that way *grimmace*)

While Intel has the 800Mhz FSB chips - they cost around $1000. Furthermore AMD has a vast lead in 64bit home computing with their x86-64 instruction set which became so popular intel dropped their competition and adopted the instruction set.

I didn't know about the lack of idle - however running at full clock rate and not doing anything doesn't really expend much more energy theorectically - because CMOS gates only consume energy during transitions

Re:First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[MojoStan]

Will someone PLEASE remind me of Why I would ever pay $499 for a Pentium 4 3.4Ghz Prescot, or $990 for an 800Mhz 2MB Extreme? I can hop over to AMD and get a better processor for less

You didn't tell us how you would use your computer. If media encoding was very important to you, then you might choose Prescott over Athlon64. If you wanted PCI-Express x16 and x1 slots, DDR2 memory slots, free HD 8 channel audio, and four SATA ports, then you might choose Prescott (not necessarily 3.4GHz). A computer is much more than just the CPU.

Am I the only Slashdot reader that thinks chipsets are more important than CPUs when building a computer?

Re:First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[evilviper]

AMD-compatable motherboards now have circuitry that instantly shuts the system off if the temp goes above so much

They did before as well. However, the problem was that they could NOT react fast enough to prevent the chip from being fried. They would work for, say, a fan failing, but a heatsink falling off fried the chip so quickly that the motherboard sensor didn't have time enough to react.

If you're sure the issue has been dealt with, I hope you will be kind enough to provide a link that specifically says the motherboards are able to shut-down the processor fast enough now that catastrophic loss of cooling no longer does serious physical damage.

While Intel has the 800Mhz FSB chips - they cost around $1000. Furthermore AMD has a vast lead in 64bit home computing

I did address this in my post. Perhaps you skipped that line?

I didn't know about the lack of idle - however running at full clock rate and not doing anything doesn't really expend much more energy theorectically - because CMOS gates only consume energy during transitions

I'm afraid that's not the case.

The computer I'm on right now has a 1.2GHz AMD processor. At idle, without fvcool, it is eating 85watts of power, and the CPU tempurature is at 123 F degrees. With fvcool running, the electricity usage drops to just over 40watts, and the tempurature drops to under 100 F degrees.

Theory and reality have a long way to go before they can be consolidated. You should read my latest journal entry thoroughly. There is a link that will show you exactly what kind of difference in tempurature you can expect when you start running fvcool, or switching to a motherboard that has the S2K bus disconnect enabled.

Re:First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[Rich0]

As far as lack of idle goes - this is not the case on the Athlon 64. My 2GHz chip runs at 800MHz 99% of the time (in either Windows or Linux). And the BIOS regulates the fan speed as needed. I believe the motherboard also has a temperature alarm shutdown built in as well.

I think that many of these issues were ones of the past. No quesiton that Intel beats AMD at a few benchmarks, and if you have a single-purpose machine that is related to one of those marks it may make sense to go with Intel. However, for most users AMD will be cheaper for the same level of performance.

Re:First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[evilviper]

As far as lack of idle goes - this is not the case on the Athlon 64.

True, but pretty much irrelevant.

And the BIOS regulates the fan speed as needed.

I've never even heard that... Usually thermally-controlled fans have their own tempurature sensor. Having the bios control them is opening yourself up to very very serious problems.

I think that many of these issues were ones of the past.

Nope, still entirely current. The only one I'm not sure about is if AMD Chips can shut-down fast enough not to get fried. Sure, they've always been able to shut-down if they got too hot, but not fast enough in the event of a heatsink failure. I would be able to answer that very quickly if I was willing to risk destroying a CPU/Mobo. Would you like to try it on an AMD64 system?

Re:First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[Rich0]

As far as lack of idle goes - this is not the case on the Athlon 64.

True, but pretty much irrelevant.

Uh - the article is about Intels newest chips. How is AMD's newest chip not relevant? You can use an Athlon 64 and suitable motherboard in place of any P4-based system and the only difference you should notice is more speed. If you take an AMD64 and install WinXP you'd never even know that you had a 64-bit processor.

I've heard that the older AMD chips tended to run hot - I believe that the general consensus is that AMD did not go this route with the AMD64 - which makes it a good choice from a heat management perspective. In my own system there is certainly nothing exotic in this regard (just a heat sink and a standard fan. No dedicated pipe to the outside of the case or anything like that like I've seen in some Intel systems. I do have probably more chasis fans than I need (case came with so many I have half of them unplugged - I've never seen a temperature hit as much as 60C). Right now I'm running at 38.5C...

Would you like to try it on an AMD64 system?

Frankly, I wouldn't be willing to try this on a P4 system. The way to do a test like this is to take 100 CPUs from different lots of each brand and see what happens with each one. Perhaps the failure rate is higher on AMD64s. I couldn't say - it really wasn't a factor I considered when I bought my CPU. How often does heat sink failure occur in real life - it is a passive system (I'd be more concerned if I were overclocking it through the roof and had all kinds of crazy active cooling systems).

As far as fan controlled by BIOS goes - I'm not sure of the exact mechanism. On ASUS BIOS it is configurable, but it could very easily be a setting on a chip independant of the CPU (I agree that it would be a bad idea to have a system crash kill the fan control)...

Re:First Dual-Core Hotplates, then locking?

[evilviper]

How is AMD's newest chip not relevant?

Primarily because it isn't less expensive than equivalent Intel chips.

That was the original poster's whole point... That AMD chips were cheaper and better than Intel's. I listed a few places where AMD's less expensive CPUs fall short of Intel's.

Frankly, I wouldn't be willing to try this on a P4 system.

I would... They have shown that they are perfectly capable of handling that particular failure.

The way to do a test like this is to take 100 CPUs from different lots of each brand and see what happens with each one.

No, no, no. This is not a statistical comparison, like the MTBF on processors. It's quite simple, a device that is as fragile and runs as hot as a processor will self-destruct if the heatsink falls off, and there is not an adequate countermeasure in place. If you test 100 processors, all 100 will either survive, or be fried completely.

How often does heat sink failure occur in real life

Quite often I'm afraid. Back in the 200MHz days, heatsinks were light, compact, etc., so they rarely fell off. These days, heatsinks are often made of all copper, have massive weight, a high center of gravity, and therefore exert a lot of torque on the CPU, and the socket where it clips on. (This example is just slightly exaggerated to make the issue more clear)

I've had a few pre-assembled bare-bones systems shipped to me in the past couple years, and almost always the heatsink is not in contact with the CPU, most likely due to the system being thrown around in shipping. So, if a company like Gateway/Dell used AMD CPUs, and they didn't have any method to prevent self-destruction in the event of the heatsink failing, they'd have a lot of returns where they have to replace the CPU and motherboard due to heat damage.

Even if we're just talking about your personal system, any time you move your system from one place to another, you risk the heatsink falling off. If you buy low-cost motherboards, the socket might be cheap plastic, and the clips could just break off for no reason, with no warning.

It's one of the most serious problems with computers today.

i love these articles...

[moondo]

Intel included an overclocking-prevention mechanism into their new chipsets... only Asus and Gigabyte know how to override it.

There you go! As long as Intel doesn't make an "unoverridable" chipset we'll have crazy geekz trying to figure out how to get around it and making a webpage about it.

Re:i love these articles...

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading Toms it seems a slight BIOS modification to reset timings will sort the problem out. No big deal.

What about underclocking?

[Gothmolly]

Follow along here. I have a "2600" Athlon, which is really a 2.083 GHz chip, which supposedly takes a 166 MHz FSB. I have lowered the multiplier on the chip, but raised the FSB to 200, since I havd DDR400 memory. No stability issues whatsoever, and various benchmarks report about a 1/5 improvement in memory bandwidth, etc.
I have no real desire to rev the chip higher than spec, in fact, its so damn hot now, I'm thinking about dropping the overall GHz. But its useful to be able to twiddle the multipliers to suit your needs. Thank you AMD, fsck you Intel.

Re:What about underclocking?

[DeathPenguin]

You have to exceed a certain threshold,underclocking will be fine.

I still don't like having Intel telling me what's best for me no matter how I choose to clock my CPU.

Re:What about underclocking?

[evil crash]

You're not allowd to undrclock either. The chip wont generate enough heat and will last too long and be way too stable.

Re:What about underclocking?

[evilviper]

in fact, its so damn hot now, I'm thinking about dropping the overall GHz.

Your heat problems are almost certainly related to the S2K bus disconnect problem. Either run fvcool (if your chipset is supported) or buy a newer AMD-certified motherboard that says it comes with S2K bus disconnect enabled.

You will see a massive decrease in heat, and a more than 50% drop in electricity consumed by your CPU. Read my most recent journal entry for more information. In addition, you should probably invest a few dollars in thermal paste, a decent heatsink and 80mm fan. My 2GHz AMD processor doesn't even reach 130 F degrees, despite 90 F degree ambient tempuratures, a demand for silent fans, and a motherboard that isn't supported with FVCOOL.

Only terrorists overclock

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the link between overclockers and Al-Queda is quite clear. There has been multiple contacts detailed and documented between the two but unfortunately for security reasons I cannot disclose them. So you'll just have to trust me on this one... if you overclock, we will invade you Mr. Terrorist Osama.

Re:Only terrorists overclock

[evilviper]

See, look! Aluminum! They have aluminum! They must be planning on building atomic bombs!!!

I don't think this is a move against hobbyists ...

[Belisarivs]

But rather against merchants that overclock and then sell machines as the next-highest processor. I remember back when Intel first started doing this the company said it wasn't targeting the actions of the end user but rather shady mercahnts.

underclocking?

[MenTaLguY]

Dumb question, but does this also affect _under_clocking?

Re:underclocking?

[Shalda]

Not really that dumb of a question. Just that the market for underclocking is so small, it's just not a very important question. Especially when you can go out and buy a C3 or a Pentium-M or other low power chip. But in any event, yes, I'm quite sure this affects underclocking as well. However, since Asus and Gigabyte appearantly have workarounds, who cares?

Re:underclocking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who in the hell modded this as Interesting when it was clearly supposed to Funny?

Re:underclocking?

[MenTaLguY]

It was intended to be a little of both.

Re:underclocking?

[confused one]

Yes, but since Intel, AMD, Via, Transmeta, etc. all sell slower chips (you can still buy P1's from Intel for OEM embedded use), it's irrelevant.

Re:underclocking?

[forkazoo]

It is hardly irrelevant. For two reasons. One is that you may already have the hardware. A friend of mine had a Pentium 200 MHz. It was a little noisy, but he wanted to use it as a webserver. So, I helped him underclock it. Now, it runs fanless, without having to buy any new hardware. Second reason is plain, simple l33tness. Some people enjoy arbitrary hardware hacks just because they can. We are tinkerers at heart. Now, since overclocking is main stream, and associated with script kiddies, there is a certain cool factor to underclocking (no pun intended) just because it is inherently for its own sake. There is something neat about being able to say, "Yeah, I made a demo using OpenGL, but for the hell of it, I wrote all the code in ASM" and then somebody says "Wow, if you do 3D graphics and programming and shit, you must have a fast computer?!" and then you say "Actually, I slowed it down to make it more interesting."

It's like when an artist uses fat pastel chalks. The loss of the ability to work with fine details in the image forces the artist to concentrate more on light and form, so you get some interesting pictures. Underclocking ties one hand behind the back of the power user, so when he frags you in Quake, it is that much more embarrassing.

Re:underclocking?

[confused one]

Right... Well if your hardware hacking that's one thing I suppose. Hell, I've done it to save a piece of old hardware.

If your setting up hardware for professional use, it's irrelevant. I've heard the stories from the guys who say the underclocked all their servers to reduce the heat load or reduce the power consumption or crap like that. Truth is, if they put themselves in that situation, the ordered the wrong equipment in the first place, didn't they.

Re:underclocking?

[forkazoo]

Indeed, for professional use, it seems silly, because the slower, cooler hardware is usually cheaper, too! :) I've never seen anybody underclock a system and claim it was part of a master plan, and the reason the system was acaquired. It is either entirely for the hell of it, or because it prevent the need to acquire new hardware... As it should be. I wonder if I can underclock my VAX. that would be so extraordinarily uberl33t that I might be surrounded by hoardes of hot chicks wanting to see my underVAX. You see, if overclocking is overcompensating for a sense of inadequacy... Well, lets just say that Real Men drive old Saturns, and underclock their systems!

So?

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

With such a fragile socket and obscene thermal properties, who here is going to overclock a prescott P4 to begin with? 115W rated thermal dissipation on the 560 (3.6GHz) model. 115W!

Re:So?

[evilviper]

There are much better heatsinks and fans then you normally see on current processors. Buy an Alpha heatsink, copper base, black aluminum fins (why doesn't every heatsink maker use black fins?) and so big it fits an 80mm fan with no adapter, like all other heatsinks need.

There is also watercooling, thermo-electric, heatpipes, etc.

So, 115W is major, but higher is possible, and can be cooled rather effeciently, even with 90 degrees F ambient tempuratures as I have to deal with. Then again, at that point, is there any reason not to go with AMD instead?

Gotta keep the 'bang for the buck' factor low...

[pointbeing]

I run SMP machines at home exclusively. First it was Celerons and then P4s that cannot be run in pairs. If you want Intel x86 SMP these days you'll buy a Xeon processor.

I really don't get this - seems to me that some of the hardcore overclockers would let the magic smoke out of the processor by tweaking Vcc to get that extra 10Hz of clock speed - and Intel would sell more processors by unlocking them.

Go figure. I guess I've just built my last Intel machine.

I just don't get it.

[Peter Lustig]

Why do people overclock their PCs? The money you have to spend for extra cooling could also be spent for a faster CPU. And the manufactuerer does not specify a chip for a certain clock-speed without a reason.

Sometimes I take the other way und underclock my Athlon TB1333. With less speed you can also decrease the core voltage and save some energy. If you combine this with a tool like (L)Vcool, you get a really cool & quiet computer, even with the boil an egg on it Athlon.

But thats just my opinion.

Re:I just don't get it.

[Metal Remains]

If you can save $100/200 on the CPU price, then a quality fan for $30-40 is well worth it to overclock. The only change between CPU speeds for the same core is the test rating Intel gives them as they are cut off the die. They are all the same speeds, just different production quality. I wouldn't be surprised if some higher speed CPU's are just marketed lower to sell them quicker... this is why OC'ing works well and sells chips.

Re:I just don't get it.

[Egekrusher2K]

Why do people overclock their PCs? The money you have to spend for extra cooling could also be spent for a faster CPU.

Because once you get the initial cooling setup, you can carry it (for the most part) from system to system, upgrade to upgrade. I've heard that argument many times before. It's not valid. Sorry.

Also, the 1333mhz Athlon Thunderbirds were the last of that core ever made. They ran hotter than hell stock, and I bet if you tried, you wouldn't be able to budge the clock speeds on it. That's pretty much the top end of that core. However, if you're concerned with power consumption, you may want to consider an Athlon XP mobile processor instead. They run on a lower core voltage and produce much less heat (they're cool enough to use passive cooling if that tells you anything).

Re:I just don't get it.

[Sinus0idal]

I've clocked my 2.6 p4 up to 3.2 stable with stock cooling... so huge fans aren't always necessary...

It's all about Phase 3

[midifarm]

Those that think AMD won't soon follow suit are sadly mistaken. Why make $30 for a $120 processor that can be overclocked when you can make $90 on a $250 chip? You'll find that both Intel and AMD will start limiting what a consumer can "legally" do to their chips. Limits will be placed upon use and warranty. Don't be surprised if legislation will be made on the premise that you are licensing the fair and proper use of Intel and AMD products, not actually purchasing them.

With the advent of high end gaming, people are willing to spend more on a system. But these parts will rise in price accordingly. Building your own will no longer be a viable method of computer purchasing. Dell, HP and others will make sure of that.

With the help of the big two prices will go up, because of the need to make profits. You can't make a whole lot when you're charging $500 per box, but at $3K there's room.

Peace

Re:It's all about Phase 3

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be surprised if legislation will be made on the premise that you are licensing the fair and proper use of Intel and AMD products, not actually purchasing them.

Don't forget to put on your tinfoil hat either. How exactly would there be legislation passed to force consumers to not do what they want with a product that they purchased and own legally? Even if there is legislation, what are they going to do to you if you overclock your system? Arrest you? The only thing I can think of is maybe the users who overclock their system, burn out their chip, and expect a refund/replacement on the product - that might be considered fraud. But most users who overclock their system know exactly what they are doing and wouldn't expect to get any kind of support for their system if something happened. As others on here have pointed out, Intel is most likely targetting the middleman who overclocks the system, and then sells it as a higher speed system. This is definitely considered fraud and they should go after these crooks.

Re:It's all about Phase 3

[jjjefff]

Most of the computer users I know aren't high-end gamers. And last time I checked (today), Dell and HP are still selling extremely competent PCs for <$500. When I say competent, I mean competent for the majority of home PC users, who want to surf the web, do email, use Office, listen to music, burn CDs, download movies, etc.

These guys made their big profits by driving the prices down, not up. They've never been worried about competition from chop shops that overclock OEM processors. Why? Because the vast majority of home computer users have been through PC troubleshooting one too many times to want to buy from anyone who doesn't have a reputation for good customer service.

Whether it's a short-sighted move by Intel or not, there is no big conspiracy going on to make it prohibitively expensive for us to play UT2k5.

Re:It's all about Phase 3

[midifarm]

For what most users use their computers for a P133 would be defined as competent. If the profits were truly there then why is Gateway hanging by the cord of a plasma display? Look for prices to go up. The business model for companies like this is to put prices so low the little guy can't compete, sending them out of business then slowly raise prices to cover the years of breaking even on the larger products. Trust me I've worked for companies like this.

Peace

Re:It's all about Phase 3

[jjjefff]

To be fair, while volume discounts may allow them to put their prices lower than the little guys could ever hope to match, they're not losing money or breaking even. Both are consistently showing more than half a billion in profits per quarter lately, and they still sell those sub-$500, extremely-competent-for-most-users PCs.

Dell
HP

Re:It's all about Phase 3

[evilviper]

Those that think AMD won't soon follow suit are sadly mistaken.

Doubtful. You will see the public shy away from companies that impose artifical limits on what they can do. Sure, you can say my warranty is void, but nothing more than that...

If AMD and Intel both go the same way of limiting what people can do, you'll see Via getting more business, despite their CPUs not even being able to compete performance-wise.

There will be a bigger market for 3rd party processors, so you'll see the imitators come back to life. The WinChips of the world will have an opportunity, and will take it. It's the same opportunity Intel gave AMD to get a good foothold in the market.

Personally, I think Intel is big and arrogant, while AMD is a lot smarter. They know how they got where they are, and I don't believe they will do anything to jeopardize that, at least for years to come.

In other words, your post is nothing but baseless paranoia.

Intel cutting its own limbs off

[Spl0it]

I can't believe they would do something like this. As far as I've seen AMD has been stealing market share faster and faster every day and by doing this they're only encouranging every gamer who still has intel to purchase an AMD system. Everyone knows that the gaming industry is driving computer hardware and software to new levels; For intel to be cutting it's ties with the gaming industry is like shooting yourself in the foot.

This has nothing to do with warrenty issues, and everything to do with Intel wanting people to continuely upgrade for the faster chips right when they come out. (When prices' are high).

Re:Intel cutting its own limbs off

[servognome]

Yes AMD stole .1% market share last quarter.

Re:Intel cutting its own limbs off

[Zed2K]

This has nothing to do with the game industry. It only concerns those kiddies who like to overclock their processors to get higher benchmark numbers than someone else. That group of people is so small is that there won't be any impact.

Re:Intel cutting its own limbs off

[Spl0it]

How many people is a small group? You realize lan parties are getting increasingly more popular every year, thus increasing this so called 'small' group. If this group is still considered small now, within another few years I'm sure it will meet your 'medium' size group standard.

But marginally is it better?

[gelfling]

When you have a 400Mhz CPU and you goose it to 600Mhz you have a 50% improvement. To get a 50% improvement out of 3Ghz CPU you have to juice it to 4.5Ghz. And let's face it anything less than a 25% improvement, or in this example a 750Mhz improvment - the actual perceived improvement is practically ZERO. So it seems to be fairly useless in the big scheme of things.

Why not build a machine instead that can boot in 2 seconds or has a 100% disk I/O performance improvement?

Oh wait I forgot - having 0.0054% better FPS playing some 1337 shooter game is da Shit. All hail me and my enormous ferrite testicles.

Re:But marginally is it better?

[evilviper]

All I can say is, overclocking my AMD 1.6GHz CPU to 2GHz is a very noticable improvement with CPU-intensive tasks. Probably not too much with gaming, but with mencoder eating all my CPU power, I can get video encoding done 15% faster, or so.

Disk IO improvements would be nice, and boot-up times would be nice, but wouldn't help me too much, because I don't restart my systems 10 times every day, and it's not too common that I max-out my disks. It happens, but it's only an average of a few seconds of slowdown for me, while CPU is the bottleneck for many many hours of operations every day.

So, overclocking is benefitial for some of us.

Development cost?

[pointbeing]

I wonder if the development costs for locking the chipset are more than the profit they would have lost by leaving them unlocked.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Intel? Bah.

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped buying Intel chips a long time ago. I've always been an avid AMD supporter, but only bought Intel for a Xeon server I built years ago. Since then, every chip I've owned is AMD because I feel they are more in tune with their customers.

How does it work?

[maxwell demon]

Yes, I've RTFA, but to me the image looks as if it were comparing with the PCIEX clock, but the text explicitly states that PCIEX isn't doing the trick. Maybe it's just because I don't know what BSEL[2:0] means, but I don't understand the mechanism.

Especially: Since the only reference for a clock can be another clock, shouldn't it always be possible to simply increase all clocks available to the processor (assuming the rest of the hardware doesn't make problems)?

Intel is probably saving money on returns

[FriedTurkey]

Intel is probably saving more money than making on overclockers. All of those chips that are returned after someone burns them out oveclocking is costing Intel money.

Underclocked chips

[phorm]

Ah, but it's also not unheard of for Intel to *underclock* a chip for sale.

Let's say that Intel is currently selling a lot of P4-3.5Ghz CPU. In a month or two they develop a P4-4.0Ghz CPU. There's still a demand for the 3.5 at a lower price, but it's a pain to have production for both chips. So what do they do? Sell the 4.0 as a 3.5, and stick underclock protection on it.

Yes, indeed, because after a point it is actually cheaper for them to release the higher-speed CPU in greater volume. However, seeing as though the extra 0.5Ghz might be another $100, they don't want you knowing about it.

So they hide the fact, market the 4.0 as a 3.5 (still at lesser price because people are buying), and stick "overclock" protection in it to prevent people who actually would by the more expensive 4.0 from buying the cheaper (but the same) CPU and just setting the clock to that of the more expensive.

It's been done before, with some Celerons and perhaps other CPUs.

Re:Underclocked chips

[Anonymous Coward]

most chips are underclocked. Do you really belive that all the chips were invented on their own? No, one chip is developed, and then Intel (and AMD, and VIA, and IBM, and...) lock the proccessor at different frequencies so as to best saturate the market.
This isn't exactly bad for the end user. After all, imagine a world where only the fastest versions were realeased. Yes the average Joe would then have a faster chip because the price for the fastest version would probably come down, but anyone that couldn't afford the one or two chips on the market (not all processors turn out the same and some are underclocked because the device is not considered reliable at higher clock frequencies, this is called binning) but the low end user would get screwed, because he wouldn't be able to afford anything but the previouse version. Imagine that the everyone else has their 3 gigahert p4 and your stuck on your 1 gigahert p3 simply because there is no in between proccessor?
The practice isn't unfair in anyway and is completely justifiable.

Re:Underclocked chips

[Anonymous Coward]

Your portray is distorted. If there is a large demand for 3.5Ghz chips, Intel will simply not test them at higher speeds.

Re:Underclocked chips

[confused one]

While this is true...

They've also been known to take the 4.0's that failed and re-test them at 3.5GHz. Should they pass, they're shipped. Now, do you know why they failed? Do you even know they were tested at 4.0GHz? No you don't. All you know is that Intel certifies the chip at 3.5GHz.

It makes very good sense

[PJamFan241]

Preventing overclocking makes very good sense for Intel.

This move is NOT designed to prevent end-users from overclocking; that is an unfortunate side effect.

The real reason is because often, shady resellers will be Intel chips, overclock and sell them as faster than they really are. When the chips fail (which, if overclocking is widespread, they inevitbly will in some cases), it looks to the end user like Intel makes crappy chips; obviously this is bad for business.

Now accusations of intentionally marking chips down from what their capable of may or may not be true. In some cases that's justified; better safe than sorry for Intel: they'd rather have chips that aren't performing as fast as they possibly could then chips failing because they weren't capable of the level they were marked at.

Then again sometimes this is a sketchy practice.

Re:It makes very good sense

[Jeff DeMaagd]

IIRC, the system is a statistical method. They have to test a small percentage of processors from any given batch, and than go down a bit to make sure all chips in the batch will work at the advertised speed. If you happen to get a good chip that OCs like mad, then maybe you got lucky.

The article in a nutshell

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

Within the 915/925 chipset is a function that halts the function of the cpu should the cpu-chipset bus speed deviate outside of the acceptable tolerance (5%) of the rated bus speed. This affects both overclocking and underclocking the bus. The "fix" mainboard makers are considering is not much more than a small hack that allows for another 10-15% deviation from the nominal bus speed.

Analysis: this is nothing new. Intel retail mainboards have *never* allowed overclocking, and their processors have been multiplier-locked since 1998.bottom line: the lock is there for stability concerns. If you want to overclock a socket-T processor, use a mainboard with a different chipset.I'm sure Ali, SiS, VIA, and Ati would love your business.

Numerical Superstitions

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

It's amusing that Intel is afraid of using the number 666 (evidenced by the Pentium 3 667, and now the DDR667 memory). Not that I blame them, the fundies would probably call for a boycott of their products if they labeled them correctly in this circumstance.

Re:Numerical Superstitions

[FriedTurkey]

No its because 666.6666 rounds to 667.

Re:Numerical Superstitions

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

However, standard pratice is not to round up when labelling speeds. Witness the P2 266, DDR266, etc. Shying away from DDR666 is no more logical than skipping the 13th floor in tall buildings.

Re:Numerical Superstitions

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense! They were just rounding up 666.666 MHz to the closest number. Just like they've always done, uh, with the PII 266 and the Pentium 66

Re:It's official; Netcraft confirms; Intel is dyin

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

Intel competes because Intel is a recognized brand name and employs a huge marketing budget, while AMD is/does not.

Branding

[Anonymous Coward]

Guy's, you're so self centered you can't even think about the larger world around you. "Oh, woe is me. Why, why, Intel have you done this to me?"

Intel needs to stop overclocking. This is to prevent faud. Intel must protect the integrity of its brand for companies that depend their hardware. When you buy Intel, you know you're getting what you purchased; a reliable Intel processor that the merchant hasn't messed with it.

AMD is killing themselves by enabling shady merchants to overclock their processors and sell them as the next faster processor for a much higher price. This kind of fraud can ruin a company. When your $20K+ server burns down because of an overclocked AMD processor, you won't be making that mistake again.

Intel is more than happy to let AMD have a tiny market of overclocking game players in exchange for a much larger market of 24/7 Internet server systems.

Re:Branding

[ChrisMaple]

Reputable manufacturers of expensive servers do not buy from storefront suppliers. They buy direct from Intel or AMD or from reputable distributors whose reputation would be destroyed if they remarked processors.

Boiled egg

[DaLiNKz]

Decided to image google for "AMD Egg" -> Got this.

Overclucking

[what the drat]

Wouldn't encouraging overclocking the chips actually increase the sales of the chips because of all those morons who frag their chips?

Re:Overclucking

[Anonymous Coward]

The subject of overclocking comes up over and over again. I agree it's all just a waste of time and money. All these script kiddies think they are the sh*t when the get a few more MHz out of their comcrap and gateway systems (no offence to people who like compaq). Yeah go out and spend your money on a $150 super cool looking water cooling system .. which could have gone towards a real processor. I'm gonna sit back and enjoy my ghetto xeons and feminine muscle cars. I am so sick of this subject.

Re:Overclucking

[Awperator]

No because you have the morons that then RMA their fragged chips.

Who wrote this title?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't this read:

'Intels latest cpu lock broken by 2 manufacturers'.

is it possible for Intel...

[zogger]

... to determine if a CPU has been overclocked? I mean for warranty purposes. I would imagine that they have gotten burned before from bogus claims perhaps, so possibly this mechanism might be used to determine if overclocking has occurred.

I don't know, just asking the modders what they know about it.

I don't overclock, I just use 4D CPU "time shifting". I let the rich guys and international corporations buy the brand new stuff, then stay on the raw dripping bleeding edge of like 6-7 year old technology. And whenever I get something "new" using those advanced techniques of RAMMP (random asset and money management preservation), it IS "newer and faster and shiny" to me.

Funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Must...find...switch...to...humor...processor...

Support

[rsilvergun]

The problem with overclocking is support. That "new breed of computer users" are idiots. Now that overclocking can be done in the software on most computers, it's accessible to people who don't know better than to kick the speed up 2x. Remember people who would run the Add New Hardware Wizard in Windows 95 to add stuff they didn't have? These are the people Intel is afraid of (and rightly so).

Yeah, they're not supported, and they don't get warranty support. But that's not gonna stop them from getting mad at Dell/Gateway/etc when they won't replace the CPU they fried (remember, these people are dumb). Their attitude is likely to be: "if it was going to break the computer, why'd you let me do it?".

Also, Intel's interested in making installing a new processor as easy as possible, which means idiot proofing the things. If you can't overclock it, that's one less way to fry it. Again, fewer support calls, fewer stupidly angry customers.

Re:Support

[Cecil]

Now that overclocking can be done in the software on most computers, it's accessible to people who don't know better than to kick the speed up 2x ... These are the people Intel is afraid of (and rightly so).

A nice theory, but if this were the case, there would be no reason for the stepping B chip to remove the ability to disable the 'feature'. The fact is, Intel would much prefer power users to buy a very-high-margin Xeon or Extreme Edition or whatever new multi-core CPUs they have coming up (all of which they currently avoid, because the hefty cache and other features make them very poor for overclocking). They decidedly do not want them taking the latest bargain-basement equivalent to the Celeron 300A and overclocking the shit out of it.

At worst, a conspicuous bridge that needs to be soldered on the CPU like AMD used to do is more than obscure enough to keep out the people who don't know what the hell they're doing. It should not require trickery from motherboard manufacturers to work around actual electronics on the chip. The last thing I want is to have to my CPU and motherboard and other components engaged in electronic warfare with one another.

I'm really really tired of people trying to protect the 'stupid people'. Let natural selection eat these morons (or at least their money). Please. For the good of the human race.

Re:Support

[hfolkers]

Normaly when you insert a new processor, your bios settings reset so there is no problem, also dumb people don't now how to acces the bios-settings. All people I helped with their computer (also the lesser dumb people) didn't now they can set more settings as possible in the win-control-pannel, thus also there is no problem.

Re:Support

[Anonymous Coward]

"Remember people who would run the Add New Hardware Wizard in Windows 95 to add stuff they didn't have?"
Actually it was the only way to install Adaptec's ASPI drivers back then.
One had to fool the installation program into thinking one actually had an Adaptec SCSI card installed to get the ASPI drivers to install.
This is a bad comparison as it's often a very usefull trick used by people who do actually know what they are doing.

Re:Support

[bonkedproducer]

Having been in charge of an RMA department for a system builder I can tell you - another part of it is the cost of replacing items when customer X gives you the BS line of "I didn't OC it - I don't know why the thing melted in half."

Hard to prove that OCing a chip is the reason you have an RMA issue.

Having said all that - AMD is getting better, but I still stick with Intel because out of literally thousands of Intel Boxed Procs, I never had to do a single return but out of less than 50 Boxed AMDs I had to return seven - one after the customer sent a fax to the VP of Marketing at AMD after having problems and we were shipped a replacement boxed proc overnight along with misc. schwag (tee-shirts, extra BS to make said customer happy again) only to find out it had a bad heat sink fan. There just seems to be better quality control from Intel, and I'll gladly pay the extra $10 or so to get that.

Re:Support

[It'sYerMam]

$10? Last time I checked overclockers.co.uk a 2800 and a 2.8 were priced 40 apart. If you don't believe the marketing lingo, you can still get a 3200 for the same price as a 2.8.
To be honest, I'd rather have the chance of getting a bad product and having to return it (which I haven't, yet) and get a better processor for my money.

Re:Support

[Saeger]

Remember people who would run the Add New Hardware Wizard in Windows 95 to add stuff they didn't have?

These "dumb" people were just ahead of their time. They'll get the last laugh in 2015 when they attach a DRM-free GNU Molecular Assembler to their system and the "Add New Hardware Wizard" actually works! :)

"Hey, free computer equipment! Free diamonds! Free food! And free solar cells to power it all from the Sun! And a free molecular recycler! I am an island!"

--

Re:Support

[Anonymous Coward]

What gives you the right to overclock it anyways? Sure you can bypass it if there's a way. But why should Intel openly sacrifice profits because you want the fastest machine without paying for it?

Obviously if you are technical enough you will find a way. Your mentality just boggles me.

Re:Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Ownership. What gives you the right to soup up your car anyway? What gives you the right to add onto your house anyway? What gives you the right to disable popup ads? What gives companies the right to screw individuals and artificially increase profits?

Re:Support

[pseudochaotic]

What gives Intel or anybody the right to stop you from overclocking it? It is yoiur property, after all.

Re:Support

[rsilvergun]

Dumb people read PC magazines and try stuff. There are lots of people who, after spending $1000+ on a computer when all they want to do is check email and buy stuff online get an 'itch' to do something with it to justify the cost. So they start playing with settings they a) don't understand and more importantly b) don't really want to understand.

Re:Support

[rsilvergun]

I'm talking about people who wanted to get online, so they added a modem and they called tech support wondering why AOL couldn't connect. There's less of them now, but only because computer's have become so common that the _really_ dumb stuff (cup holders anyone?) is starting to disappear. I imagine if we had tech support in the early 19th century there'd be some really funny car stories out there too.

Re:Support

[goatan]

the last thing I want is to have to my CPU and motherboard and other components engaged in electronic warfare with one another.

Maybe the Mobo manufacturers will say stuff it we don't want to fight and AMD give us what we want anyway and ignore Intel, I would imagine that it's a bit of a pain when the Major mobo manufacturers ignore your chip.

I'm really really tired of people trying to protect the 'stupid people'. Let natural selection eat these morons (or at least their money). Please. For the good of the human race.

we defiantly need to get a bit of Darwinism back in to our lives.

Re:Support

[goatan]

I imagine if we had tech support in the early 19th century there'd be some really funny car stories out there too.

they did they where called Mechanics my Dads one he has some funny stories here's a few

1. Customer comes complaining that it took a couple of hours to fill there oil up! asked where they had put the oil in customer pointed confidently to the dipstick holder no wonder it took a couple of hours.

2. Another one, customer has car towed in with one rim completely tireless she been stopped driving up the main street of to local town on her rim asked why she couldn't hear the noise she replied "I did hear something but I turned the radio up"

3. Customer who had been conned into thinking they where buying a car with power steering seller blew the tyres up to dangerous levels making them firmer and reducing the rolling resistance especially at speed. Customer was most upset when told that it was impossible for a car to have power steering if it wasn't fitted with the necessary pumps etc.

4. User complained that CD player didn't work well it would because it was a tape player and she been inserting CD's in the gap between the dash and the radio there 5 in there, that must rank along side cup holders.

5. Customer who put water in the oil filler and oil in the radiator Lots of people do that.

6. Lots of people still fill up there car with the wrong fuel and need the tank pumped and flushed.

Despite them having been around for years the average person is still doing dumb things with cars you only have to look on FARK for your daily dose of dumbass in a car, it will be same with computer as well with these people becoming "look how stupid they are" news stories.

1% is hardly "cutting off their nose"

[msobkow]

I'm quite certain that even a 1% estimate exagerrates the number of overclockers rather significantly. Sure they spend more money on their systems than regular users, but not on the CPU -- it's going to the latest bleeding edge 3D accelerators, the fastest CAS2 memory they can find, the fastest HDD's they can find, etc.

If most overclockers were busy overclocking the fastest CPU's Intel sells, maybe it would make a difference, but most overclockers are trying to get that bleeding-edge performance without paying the bleeding-edge price. Intel loses nothing by stopping the practice.

We're also getting well into the hardware performance ranges where overclocking by even 10% is a major accomplishment that requires very serious cooling. It's not like the PII/III days when you could get as much as a 50% boost over the rated speed (rare, but it did happen.)

Even most overclocking fanatics I've known over the years don't bother overclocking their latest systems. It's not worth the risk of frying the CPU and destabilizing the system for less than a 10% performance boost when you can go with a dualie board of cheaper CPUs instead.

Re:1% is hardly "cutting off their nose"

[mprinkey]

It's not like the PII/III days when you could get as much as a 50% boost over the rated speed (rare, but it did happen.)

It wasn't at all rare. The Celeron 300a overclocked to 450 MHz without so much as a whimper. I built several systems (single and dual) using them. I had dual 366 celerons that ran at 550 in SMP. That was the heyday of overclocking and it was created by Intel's marketing practices. With competition from AMD, Intel hasn't been able to "downbin" and terrace the market to its whim anymore, so overclocking isn't that big of a deal.

Re:1% is hardly "cutting off their nose"

[mcrbids]

I'm quite certain that even a 1% estimate exagerrates the number of overclockers rather significantly.

But it's a very vocal 1% of users. The 1% that many others look to to discover what's "best". How many people bought athlon CPUs back in the day because it was very overclockable, because of the implied quality?

Witness Tom's hardware and a million other sites, which have long been a big proponent of overclocking...

Re:1% is hardly "cutting off their nose"

[msobkow]

So they're vocal. 99% of buyers go to Dell, IBM, HP/Compaq, etc. and buy a canned system.

They don't select a fancy video card. They don't buy more/better memory, faster harddrives, etc. They buy a canned computer that has parts with good reviews, or which they can afford.

The only people who get custom systems are either bitheads themselves, or they have friends who are bitheads that won't let them waste their money on a canned system.

It's amazing how many people think that being loud and obnoxious means they matter. *LOL*

Re:1% is hardly "cutting off their nose"

[SecretFire]

My current chip: An Athlon XP mobile barton

Default speed: 1.86 ghz

Current speed: 2.5 ghz

It's completely stable with a quiet, cheap air cooler.

In fact, the pentium 4 northwood/athlon xp thoroughbred and barton generation is (was? not quite yet) one of the best overclocking opportunities around. P4 2.4C running at 3.2ghz and above, athlon 2500+ going to 3200+ without so much as a second thought, the overclockability of this generation is excellent.

Re:1% is hardly "cutting off their nose"

[SomeGuyFromCA]

We're also getting well into the hardware performance ranges where overclocking by even 10% is a major accomplishment that requires very serious cooling. It's not like the PII/III days when you could get as much as a 50% boost over the rated speed (rare, but it did happen.)

Hey, the 50% oc is still possible. I have a P4 1.6 @ 2.4.

Fortunately (or not) it will probably be my last Intel chip... between their plans for huge amounts of power thrown away as heat dissipation and LGA (seems overly complex, fragile and highly demanding of fine motor skills), I think they're majorly shooting themselves in the foot.

Do AMD chips still roast themselves in seconds if the cooling fails?

Re:1% is hardly "cutting off their nose"

[eofpi]

Do AMD chips still roast themselves in seconds if the cooling fails?

Only when the heatsink falls completely off without breaking something else on the way down

More than just overclockers, there are those of us who are called upon by family and friends for recommendations for hardware. I (and a lot of us) go with whatever offers the best performance for the price. That's generally AMD (lately, however, they've been trying to match prices with the equivalently-measured Intel chips).

Re:1% is hardly "cutting off their nose"

[lachlan76]

It's not like the PII/III days when you could get as much as a 50% boost over the rated speed (rare, but it did happen.)

As I recall, the original celeron would take a 50% overclock 4 times out of five (66MHz to 100MHz), often without increasing the core voltage.

Because it's fun

[bstadil]

It's fun to do, you learn a fair amount and it's akin to sleuting.

Follow discussion in forums about what Batch number OC well. Get some understanding of the Semiconductor industry by comparing Temp vs Geometry, etc.

If you build your own rig the best way to learn and have a good feel for it is by trying to OC. OC the Graphics card, OC the CPU. Fiddle with FSB vs Multiplier and benchmark the various settings.

It's a hobby.

Re:I don't think this is a move against hobbyists

[shepd]

It sucks for business when you see customers as nothing more than collateral damage.

Forget overclocking, I want to underclock

[MalikChen]

I really don't care if they stop me from overclocking because I don't do it. I don't do intensive CPU tasks, so I have no need for it.

But, what I do is UNDERclock my CPU so that it runs cooler, thus needing fewer/quieter fans. I don't need all 2.4ghz, so I send the FSB and voltage down a bit. And then, instead of hitting 45 celsius when idle and fans blazing, I get around 40 degrees, and can't hear the fan at all. If I need to do something intensive, I just reboot, change to default and flip the switch that turns the fan on "high" mode.

If they are locking the FSB, voltages, multipliers, and everything else, this doesn't just prohibit overclocking, it stops tweaking at all. Which, in some form or another, is a fundamental need for most of the /. community.

Re:Forget overclocking, I want to underclock

[twbecker]

But, what I do is UNDERclock my CPU so that it runs cooler, thus needing fewer/quieter fans. I don't need all 2.4ghz, so I send the FSB and voltage down a bit. And then, instead of hitting 45 celsius when idle and fans blazing, I get around 40 degrees, and can't hear the fan at all. If I need to do something intensive, I just reboot, change to default and flip the switch that turns the fan on "high" mode.

Or, you could just get an Athlon 64 CPU and use Cool and Quiet. My 3000+ idles around 36C and runs at 997Mhz until I do something that requires it to ramp up to the full 2Ghz. The fans adjust as well. All automagically with no reboots.

Re:Forget overclocking, I want to underclock

[evilviper]

so I send the FSB and voltage down a bit.

I really wouldn't recomend setting the voltage lower. It all too often leads to a great deal of instability, and intermittent problems, while providing almost no decrease in heat output.

If I need to do something intensive, I just reboot, change to default and flip the switch that turns the fan on "high" mode

Wow, what a waste. If you are massively underclocking, and never need the max CPU power, I can understand the point. But you do need that power, and you cut yourself off from it, for a tiny tempurature savings (and likely very little power savings). You should look more into programs that will idle your CPU, rather than actually underclocking. You could get the same tempurature improvement when idle, and still have all the performance available to you when you are launching Mozilla, KDE, etc.

Re:Forget overclocking, I want to underclock

[Decimal Dave]

We have some proprietary hardware on the PCs at work that require certain clock speeds. So we have a practical need for underclocking a CPU. In the past we've purchased high end desktops only to underclock them to like 533MHz in order to make them work.

Heat

[neosiv]

My guess for this reason is that the problem lies with the heat. As people overclock it will mean more power consumption which in turn will generate more heat with this current generations of chips - which are already on the verge of damaging themselves from too much heat.

Wait, back up... this is news?

[ImpTech]

Ok, admittedly I've never owned a P4, but I was all about the PII/PIII. Maybe I missed a great era in processing, but when did Intel *ever* allow overclocking?! My understanding was they clamped down starting with the Pentium Pro and never let up since, meaning you had to buy a board from Asus or Abit, or really anybody who isn't Intel in order to overclock.

And furthermore, I seem to recall that even if your mobo would overclock the FSB, you couldn't change the multiplier on Intel chips anyway. Heck, as far as I know you can't change the multiplier on any recent Athlons without some sort of hack (granted the motherboard manufacturers are doing the hacking for you these days). This isn't news, and I'm surprised how many people seem to think it is...

A sign of a quality chip?

[192939495969798999]

It seems that Intel is probably scared of their own success. They can't make crappy chips so that people will buy more when the chip dies, because everyone will just switch to a more reliable chip. So, they must expect that their chips would actually do well overclocked, and so are blocking it b/c those are potential sales of some faster chip later. However, they neglect to notice that the people overclocking chips are the same people that will get around any lock on anything eventually, given their drive to tinker and manipulate the system. Ironically, these people don't even care if it DOES blow up, it's just cooler to have a faster computer anyways. Same attitude goes to the guy that buys a Ford SVT Cobra and puts a chip in it to make it go faster, only to have the $17,000 engine blow up. Oh well, it was cool while it lasted!

Nigel Tufnel's amplifier

[amightywind]

When someone mentions CPU overclocking it brings to mind Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap taking about his why his guitar amplifier volume knob goes from 0 to 11. "If it is set to 10, there is nowhere left to go, is there? 11 is for that extra push, over the cliff..."

Instead of Overclocking:

[dmomo]

Why by the 11, when you can just overclock the 10?

But, this one goes to 11.

what about the DMCA?

[bechthros]

Didn't that make it illegal to reverse-engineer almost anything? (I'm asking because I don't know and IANAL - damned if I can understand all that legal mumbo-jumbo)

How is "unlocking" the overclocking protection any different from "unlocking" copy protection on software, music or movies?

Is there a lawyer in the house?

Re:what about the DMCA?

[Anonymous Coward]

A big first step to understanding would be to actually read the DMCA. Don't give up because of big words like "a," "and," or "the." Simply look them up in a dictionary (like m-w.com) or ask the nice man that drives the short bus for you.

Re:what about the DMCA?

[twbecker]

Well IANAL either, but considering I think the language in the DMCA specifically says *copy* protection, I think an attorney would have a hard time arguing that it should apply here.

Overclocking lock? Maybe, maybe not...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, the boys at HardOCP have reached very different conclusions.

The relavent quote: "Obtaining overclocks in the 4GHz range were not an issue though."

Bottom line: wait for retail boards to become available before jumping to conclusions.

In other news...

[Law1620]

It seems AMD will be poised to take the lead or Intel if they do this. The only reason I buy certain motherboards and chips is too overclock them.

Shouldn't that have read

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel puts the "LOCK" in "overcLOCKing"?

Why?

[confused one]

Intel rates a chip as being good at 2.8GHz. They've run test on it in-house and certified it's a good chip before it gets loaded on a truck and shipped. (BTW, this chip may have been culled from a batch of 3.2GHz chips, where it failed testing at 3.2GHz. Since it works at 2.8GHz, they ship it configured to run at this speed).

Now, I get the chip and pump up the FSB speed to make it run at 3.2GHz. Why would I do that? Why should they let me? It's not rated for this speed. It may fail at this speed. Who's liable if it does fail? Intel?

Re:Why?

[Darren Winsper]

You, because you ran it out of spec.

Re:Why?

[confused one]

Well, that's my point. However, in practice it's nearly impossible to tell if the processor failed because it was run out of spec or due to natural causes. Intel and the OEM's must get back a ton of processors as RMA's that failed because they were OC'd. It's a liability and it's within their power to stop it, so they have.

so eighties...

[nazsco]

"intel blocks overclock yada yada yada"

Does history never stop repeating itself?

whatever their plan with this no-overclock policy is, they seems to make profit with it, because every now and them they release something like this.

I've strugled with an old Pmmx chip that cruchs my packets back home to downclock it and make it live long... wait.. maybe their goal is to stop downcloack. Maybe their chips ALREADY come overclocked and hence, with a live so short that you will change computers faster then the moore law can count hertz units increments! (i.e. you will have two computers market as gigaHertz before you buy any teraHertz)

If this is true...

[Anita Coney]

And I doubt if it's true, AMD stock holders are smiling!

Re:If this is true...

[evilviper]

I must say, I don't think Toms Hardware would lie about this. If anything, it seemed in the past that they had an anti-AMD slant. They were the ones that released a video of AMD chips combusting when their heatsinks are removed, while Intel chips were surviving the removal of the heatsink.

They were all too happy to benchmark the release version of the Opteron next to the early, unreleased Intel P4 Extreme Edition.

There are plenty more examples of the same. If they are saying something negative about Intel, I would expect it's even worse than they say.

Now, that doesn't mean Intel won't read the massively bad reactions to this move, then turn around and say:

"Ha ha, funny story about that. It was just a pre-release thing, and we didn't mean for that to actually happen. Believe us, we're Intel."

Re:If this is true...

[Anita Coney]

I just find is very hard to believe that Intel would shoot themselves in the foot like this. But if they did, it's a HUGE win for AMD.

In the good old days

[veritron]

In the good old days, processor makers would usually sell 3 different speeds of chip -

1. The base speed

2. A little better, for $100 more

3. TEH ALPHA AND OMEGA, for $500 more.

The only real difference between the base speed chips and TEH ALPHA AND OMEGA are clock limitations - I've never seen a chip that couldn't be stably clocked up to at least the next model's worth without remaining stable, and occasionally you get lucky. On paper what's supposed to happen is that processors will yield a few different speeds, with most failing to be stable at the maximum speed - but that's not really how it works when the chip reaches retail.

The big problem with this practice is as follows:
A. The performance difference between, say, a P4 2.53 and a P4 2.80 is almost zero
B. Nearly all P4 2.53's can overclock to 2.8 without any problems.
C. The price difference between a P4 at 2.26 ghz and a P4 at 2.53 ghz is 30 bucks; the price difference between a P4 3.4 Extreme and a P4 3.2 extreme is about $100 - and don't even get me started about the Pentium-M. Overclocking can really save quite a bit of money.

Most cheap people just buy the slowest processor in a family and overclock it to the next in the family - and it very often works flawlessly.

Does this mean no underclocking also?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now that's the only solution to the Intel heat problem. 'cept of course, VIA cpus.

Re:It's official; Netcraft confirms; Intel is dyin

[dasmegabyte]

How is Intel going to compete by continuing to offer an inferior product?

I dunno. They'll probably just continue to, you know, sell massively more processors than AMD by "marketing" their processor instead of merely assuming everybody will come to their senses.

It has, after all, worked for at least twelve years.

OVER AND UNDER

[KhazadDum]

My system is so old,
when I overclock it, it under clocks itself! -=-=-=-=-=-=-

That's not the REAL problem !

[wtarreau]

That's not the problem ! The REAL problem is what happened to the first athlons and the cyrix P200+. A very few people overclock their processor, and are proud of their games performance. They share their experiences in forums, and when a few of them have a poor cooling and their systems occasionnaly crash, they complain loudly and all other ones remember "what a shitty CPU".

Then after a few weeks, months, etc... the press says "XXX is not that stable, there are lots of problems encountered with them".

I have overclocked for a long time, and did found a use in this practise. For example, my P166+ wasn't fast enough for real-time audio processing, but was nearly fast enough. It was a 133 MHz chip. Pushing it to 150 was OK, but it was very very very hot (it ran at 4.7V instead of 3.52) !. It was not stable during hot days, but it could save me a lot of time avoiding to sample to disk then process, then listen.

I now do have a dual Athlon XP 1800+. Yes, XP !
Not overclocked, but definitely not a configuration supported by the maker. I was warned that I could encounter stability problems in SMP, but as it were some of the very first ones, they were exactly the sames as the MPs. Indeed, the bios even sets their CPUID to "athlon MP" at boot (and I was surprized that the BIOS could do this)!

I even slowed the fans down not to hear them anymore. The CPUs get up to 95C at full load, but everything works fine. This machine is rock stable, but if it did cause me even a very few trouble, do you know what I would do ? Certainly not send the CPUs back to the seller, only replace them for a supported setup. I madd a bet, I won, that's OK. If I had lost, it would have been OK too.

Re:That's not the REAL problem !

[Predius]

You didn't have to overclock a Cyrix PR166 to have problems. I went through 3 of them, finally getting an early sample of a new stepping to get one that would be stable and reliable at it's rated speed. The early Cyrix PR's were flawed.

Re:It's official; Netcraft confirms; Intel is dyin

[W2k]

So much the better for us AMD users. Less money spent marketing - more money left to important stuff like making great CPU's and developing new and even better ones.

A great product doesn't need much marketing once it's past an initial treshold where prospective buyers come to realize it exists and what its merits are. Most of AMD's popularity comes from word of mouth.

Overclocking is NOT overrated. It's got value.

[Anonymous Coward]

I built a system a couple years ago with an ASUS P4T-E mobo (dead-end rambus memory and 100MHz core FSB speed technology). Yes it was once a top performer back then when a 1.6GHz Northwood P4 was first released (which BTW, oc'ed nicely to 2.13GHz by cranking the core FSB speed up to 133MHz, long before the 133x4=533 FSB speeds officially arrrived). I got 2+ good years of service from that machine, rock-solid stable. I wanted to upgrade, but thanks to the current economy, I simply didn't have the $$$ to buy all new innards for this machine. The last of the 2.4GHz (400FSB) P4 chips were being sold pretty cheaply but need a pretty healthy cooler to overclock them stable to 133 core FSB speed which gets you 3.2GHz total CPU speed, so thanks to NewEgg and 2Cooltek for about $200 total upgrade cost I now have a 3.2GHz machine which is pretty close to the new contemporary gaming machine expected cpu speed. BTW, the old PC-800 rambus memory must be clocked with the 3X multiplier instead of the 4X multiplier when using a core 133MHz speed in this mobo... but still with a 399MHz memory clock, the memory thruput performance in this machine is about equal to PC3200 DDR memory running in single channel mode, which ain't too shabby. I run this machine 24x7 too, it's doing Stanford protein folding when I'm not gaming on it, so the CPU never gets a rest. Once I got my SP-94 cooler and case fans set up correctly, I've not had one single crash due to heat or OC instability since I installed the upgrade components about six weeks ago. I'll be able to squeeze another year's useful service life at modern speeds from this pile of parts, and hopefully by then, I'll be able to afford to build a new box around a 64-bit Athlon... the new king daddy paw-paw processor.

original idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this going to hurt Intel's business?

Intel SHOULD make an overclocker's chip.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just embed some code into it so that it announces itself on the screen at boot up time and cannot be disabled. Intel should pick some good cores, package them with what speed rating they would've been sold with as retail chips but sell them as overclocker's "hobbiest grade" chips without multiplier locks. Sell them with no warranty, and no guaranteed level of speed or stability either. Sure the overall market for these would be quite small compared to the regular commercial chip market, but would be great PR for the company. Computer hot-rodders would buy them up quickly.

Re:It's official; Netcraft confirms; Intel is dyin

[dasmegabyte]

A great product doesn't need much marketing once it's past an initial treshold where prospective buyers come to realize it exists and what its merits are.

This is a bullshit statement which is almost completely untrue. Word of mouth is not an effective means of marketing, because it relies on your product being consistantly better than the competetion in all respects and to all observers. Even if processor speed were a purely objective observation which anybody could recognize, there's still the problem that AMD's marketshare is not sufficient, nor their performance superior enough, to ensure that every consumer has heard of AMD and understand what its processors do, and why they are less expensive than Intel's chips (which are produced more cheaply).

Dropping even a little more mainstream marketing could mean a LOT for AMD. Just a little blurb that says, "hey, hi, we're AMD, we're a decent company and not a nobody" would be sufficient. It might even be enough to convince Dell to let me buy an AMD machine from them. Maybe.

Hmmm...

[cshark]

I wonder if asus over riding it could be considered a DCMA violation.

Re:It's official; Netcraft confirms; Intel is dyin

[evilviper]

A great product doesn't need much marketing

I sincerely wish that was true, but DEC found out the hard way that it isn't the case...

Perhaps the best computer company ever, fails primarily because they didn't market their products.

Hell, the stuff they were making 10 years ago already had all the solutions in it for the problems we are currently experiencing.

Paranoia

[midifarm]

I'm far from paranoid. I use IBM processors! =) It's makes very little difference what goes on in the Wintel market, because I avoid M$ and if I want to play games I'll play them on a console which will run me far less money with games than a computer and a $60 title that I'll play for a couple of weeks till it's solved.

The bottom line is what drives all these companies and they all operate very similarly. I doubt Cyrix will be coming back to life, but you never know.

Peace

Re:Paranoia

[evilviper]

I'm far from paranoid. I use IBM processors! =)

So, you quite possibly have an agenda, to sway people away from using x8 processors.

if I want to play games I'll play them on a console

You don't have to preach to me, I don't play games on a computer either.

The bottom line is what drives all these companies and they all operate very similarly.

I disagree completely. AMD and Intel both operate very differently. Most recently, Intel has been playing "hot-socket" changing the socket interface their processors use as often as possible, while AMD has stuck with Socket A for several years. Intel went the way of the much hotter processors with higher MHz ratings that don't perform any faster, while AMD stayed with lower clock speeds, and named their processor differently to explain to the public that their processors perform better. Intel has gone the way of HyperThreading, while AMD has not. Intel went the way of the Itanium/Itanic, which was a completely different, expensive chip with no real backwards compatibility, while AMD went the way of the AMD64, with full x86 compatibily, and a chip with only minor changes (like many more registers) to add 64-bit support.

The two companies are very different.

I doubt Cyrix will be coming back to life

Wow, you really don't know a thing about the x86 world do you? The Cyrix name is gone, but the terrible performance lives on in the VIA C3 processor, which is quite popular (for reasons beyond my understanding) both in cheap desktop systems, and in all the Micro-ATX systems being sold.

My opinion, but...

[msimm]

thats just stupid. I whole-heartedly understand what your saying about noise, but your methodology is wasteful.

To not get too complicated you could simply use a better cpu cooler you'll notice the Zalman in the picture includes a fan, but I have successfully used it for passive (ie fanless) cooling on my 24/7 HTPC for over a year now.

If you need more flexability, try installing a fan controller (toward the bottom of the page). Both these devices are inexpensive and trivial to install. Your cpu will thank you.

Under clocking is not a performance enhancement, no matter how clever it sounds. IMHO, ick.

Re:My opinion, but...

[msimm]

I probably should have mentioned, the Zalman cooler is pretty quiet even with the fan turned to high and on low you'd be hard pressed to hear it over hard drive and ambient room noise.

Gateway

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when they were the bomb diggity now look at their stock prices, $3.50? Man i'm glad I'm not invested in them.

stampeding cattle? that's not much. through the vatican? KINKY, sign here!

Don't you remember?

[midifarm]

I think a few manufacturers in the 90's started using the "67" monicker for the speed numbers strictly to avoid that very problen. Ever notice that buildings, especially hotels, don't have a 13th floor? The only Apollo lunar mission to fail was Apollo 13. 666 is NOT a valid telephone exchange. There are 7 colours in the rainbow because Newton would be branded a heretic for suggesting that is was comprised of 6. There's more numerology at play than people think.

Peace

Re:Don't you remember?

[tuxedobob]

Area code? No. But 666 is a valid exchange in Boston. Or more specifically, Somerville. If you're from the area, it's funny in that Somerville is considered something of a hellhole. There's a card shop that often runs Magic tournaments for the Boston area whose number is 617-666-XXXX.

What is the point?

[Anhaedra]

I can only see how this would hurt sales, especially since people can ruin the processor overclocking, thus having to buy another...

More fun to hack

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it wouldn't be as fun to overclock if there wasn't a challenge--something to overcome. Maybe it could be good for business.

I remember back in the day when people thought early athlons were locked--then found out how to overclock them by drawing on them with a pencil.

It's more fun if you have to hack it :) Just thinking out loud...

Its their chip

[nurb432]

They can put in what ever they want..

Might piss off a small part of their customers, but in the long run, the average consumer will just buy the faster model outright.

Us in the 'minority' don't count. Never have, never will. Its just how the world works.

Re:Agreed, and there's more to it then that.

[cbreaker]

A lot of your neighborhood computer guys/kids/whatever like to play around with overclocking. I do. I haven't really overclocked a machine in awhile, although my pre-week 52 Barton AthlonXP 1800Mhz runs great at 2000Mhz.

The thing is, when non-technical folks want to buy a PC, they ask the neighborhood computer guy, or the guy in the family that is into it. When someone asks me what they should get, I recommend AMD. Not because I want them to overclock (I don't even mention it to them) but that I know it's a high quality part that's fast and inexpensive. I know this becuase I use them, and people recommend what they use.

It's a grass-roots (to use a term I hate) type of marketing. And it does make a big difference on people's buying descisions.

Intel sucks, AMD rocks.

[rice_burners_suck]

I think Congress should immediately drop whatever they're doing, look into this issue, and immediately make it ILLEGAL for any microprocessor manufacturer to make it difficult to overclock their processor.

For doing this, Intel SUCKS!!!!! AMD rules!!!!!

I disagree

[qtothemax]

How is this Intel's problem? I woulden't blame intel if this happened to me, only the OEM. Intel is obviously doing this for some kind of profit, and as has been stated by a bunch of people I agree that it is so an upgrade has to be purchased when you need more power, instead of just overclocking which Intel gets no profit from. A 3.6ghz is quite a bit more pricy than a 3.4ghz, and more than likely it woulden't be much of a problem to overclock that extra 200mhz. This is about profit, not about protecting consumers. This will probably blow up in thier face, and will likely be changed with the next generation of chipsets.

Re:I disagree

[nelsonal]

This occured in the 486/Pentium days and the clock was from 50-66 mhz, 66-100mhz or 100-120/133mhz so the increase was a pretty major one (usually about a 25%+ increase in clock speed). The systems were then sold as the stock systems (and just below what the price would have been if you had bought a real faster system from the OEM). They were occasionally unstable and also had more heat issues than others.
You and I would blame the OEM, but to someone who never opens their system (or removes the expoy affixed heat sink the system doesn't work and has an Intel chip so they complain about it to their friends. This doesn't make intel happy since the chip was good for the original speed not the new one (it just happened to work). Intel doesn't really care about the home market (it's small compared to the business PC market) most of the systems are at the low end not the high end. The main reason the chip companies go after gamers is that gamers are likely to be influential others purchasing decisions.

It's more complicated, unfortunately

[Moraelin]

Well, yes and no. I still see it as a contiunation of the real damage that overclocking did, historically. That is: hurting other people.

What caused Intel and AMD to lock the multipliers, a few years back, was a much worse phenomenon: dishonest OEM's selling overclocked systems, without even testing if they work at that speed.

A lot of moms and pops back then bought an expensive 150 MHz Pentium system, but under the heatsink it really had an overclocked 100 MHz chip. Or their kid bought a chip marked 150 MHz, except it really was a remarked 100 MHz part. Again: bulk remarked, without any testing.

Now your normal overclocker at least knows that they've overclocked their system. If it doesn't work at that speed, they reset the BIOS and try a lower speed.

Those moms and pops didn't know, and wouldn't have opened the case to mess with FSB speed jumpers and multiplier jumpers anyway. All they knew was that their shiny new "Intel Inside" computer crashes randomly, and sometimes needs to be left to cool down before it boots again.

That wasn't just cutting into Intel's profits, it was giving them a bad name. All those people only knew that they bought an "Intel Inside" computer and it's crashing. Lots.

When Intel first implemented the multiplier locks, for a while it was the AMD and Cyrix chips that were used in this fraud. And unsurprisingly, then you started hearing people complaining that "AMD processors are unstable".

Heck, I was talking to an IT professional last month, and when I mentioned the VIA/Cyrix CPUs as a silent low power (if slow) solution, he _still_ was like, "but Cyrix CPUs crashed lots!" and "Why would you want a CPU that crashes?!?" After all these years, VIA is still damaged by what those dishonest OEMs did back then.

I.e., it wasn't just the cost of support calls, it actually caused a lot of lost sales in the long run.

Nowadays most OEM's know better than to mess with the FSB speed, because it's easily visible. However, your kid who wants to brag about his 3D Mark score, or the "smart" computer-oriented neighbour who helps you tune your system, or even the occasional idiot employee if you have a company, don't.

They tweak it in December when it's cold, then in July or August you start wondering why your computer starts crashing. Well, duh. Because when the ambient temperature is 20 Fahrenheit higher, so is the CPU temperature.

With the P4 thermal throttling it can get even worse. The computer might look like it works, it will even finish a run of SuperPI or 3DMark, but after a while it starts going into thermal throttling mode every 2 seconds. That's something you'd be hard pressed to diagnose if you're the average non-geek end-user. You just see that the computer crawls or has random hickups where nothing happens.

I.e., there still are very good reasons why an end-user might actually _want_ a physically non-overclockable computer, and there's a good reason why Intel doesn't want them to start thinking "Intel sucks."