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Bypassing Intel's Overclock Limit Reveals DDR2-667

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the something-to-think-about dept.

BatonRogue writes "Slashdot posted a Tomshardware article talking about Intel's 10% overclock limit on their new chipsets not too long ago. The situation has just become even more interesting. AnandTech just posted a roundup of DDR2 memory that sheds some light as to why Intel may have implemented the lock. It seems that on the Abit board they tested, which supposedly bypasses the overclock limit, the first generation of DDR2-533 memory modules had no problems working at 667MHz. Could it be that Intel is keeping DDR2-667 support for yet another revision of their new chipsets even though the memory support is clearly here today?"

23 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. A long-running conspiracy by salemnic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You know, I think we've all heard rumours of an intel conspiracy to make us buy the same product again and again for years now...

    However, one must at least consider that they have a valid reason for this. Long-term stability maybe?

    Oooohh... is that machine stability, or cashflow stability....

    -s

    1. Re:A long-running conspiracy by Short+Circuit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's more to the competition than just out-performing your competitor for this cycle.

      You have to have your next product ready for your anounced (or even widely rumored) release date. It's a lot easier to resell the same overperforming device at lower performance levels than to keep producing new overperforming devices at the same rate.

      Basically, you take bigger, slower steps, but you only report a frequently increasing fraction of each completed step in order to keep a comparable product out there competing with your competitors'.

      Also, having a single product for a longer period of time allows you to tune the hell of that product while R&D is working on pumping out the next generation. So by the end of your cycle, you'll have a reputation for a stable product.

      Finally, having a single design with a long lifespan gives you insurance in case there are delays in the R&D while they're trying to produce the next generation. You don't want your competitor to come out with two or three iterations of their product while you've only got a single relatively lackluster device on the market. (This has happened to Intel in the past...look at some of the old benchmarks on Ars Technica.)

      --
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    2. Re:A long-running conspiracy by ePhil_One · · Score: 4, Insightful
      in essence, you paid for two chip and were only using one. Yes it was deceptive. The users beleived they had a cpu and a seperate expensive add-on doing the math.

      Let me see. Users paid the price for two chip solution that would actually be slower than the single chip solution. Users actually got the faster single chip solution. Instead of forcing users to pay full price for a 486DX, they offered a mislabeled 486DX that they sold to users who already had a 486SX at a large discount.

      Yes, lets curse those bastards! Never buy anything from a vendor that gives you more than you paid for!

      Yo know, I heard a rumor that Intel is still up to these tricks! Appearantly, all P4 Northwood CPU's are identical, cut from the same slice of Silicon even, burned from the same mask! and they have the gall to sell "3.2" Ghz parts for hundreds more that "2.4" Ghz parts.

      Cripes people! It costs about 50cents to actually produce the chips, billions to design the damned things, and this causes some weirdness in the marketing of them. AMD does this as well, the test only enough parts to meet the "demand" for the high speed parts, everything else gets tested at the next lowest speed. There are hundreds of "Overclocking" sites that point this out all over the web. Are you going to accuse Intel of ripping you off because that 2.4Ghz chip could have run at 3.2Ghz? You paid for a level of performance, you got that level of performance.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
  2. Well... by kemapa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Could it be that Intel is keeping DDR2-667 support for yet another revision of their new chipsets even though the memory support is clearly here today?

    I'm suprised one must even ask this question, because the answer is absolutely Intel would do something like this. Keep in mind that the benefit of locking overclocking to only 10% is twofold for Intel. Not only do you disguise the now revealed fact that DDR2 is ready for faster speeds, but you stop people from buying cheaper chips and overclocking them. At least, that's what intel intended before the mobo manufactureres bypassed the locking. Think about it in this theoretical situation, why should I buy the $1000 3.4Ghz chip when I can buy the $500 3.2Ghz chip and overclock it 200Mhz?

    1. Re:Well... by strictnein · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Keep in mind that the benefit of locking overclocking to only 10% is twofold for Intel. Not only do you disguise the now revealed fact that DDR2 is ready for faster speeds, but you stop people from buying cheaper chips and overclocking them.

      Think about it in this theoretical situation, why should I buy the $1000 3.4Ghz chip when I can buy the $500 3.2Ghz chip and overclock it 200Mhz?

      Which is within Intel's 10% overclocking lock... so... your point is?

      --
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    2. Re:Well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Which is within Intel's 10% overclocking lock... so... your point is?

      The point still stands true, he just didn't think that someone would really have the spare time to nitpick the theoretical example. Just change his example to say:

      Why buy the $1000 3.4Ghz chip when I can buy the $500 3.0Ghz chip and overclock it 400Mhz? Which is over 10% overclock.

    3. Re:Well... by foxtrot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      you stop people from buying cheaper chips and overclocking them

      Of course, you and I, the enthusiasts, aren't the people Intel is worried about when they turn off overclocking. (After all, we've already moved to AMD, right?)

      The problem is grey-market processors. If the processors (or RAM) are easily overclockable, then Tiawancorp Computers may buy 3 gigafoo parts, overclock them to 4 gigafoo, and sell them in computers "with 4 gigafoo parts!" to unsuspecting consumers.

      The hazard here isn't just that Intel loses money-- after all, for every three people you know who overclock processors and have rock stable systems, there's always that guy who can't get the darned thing through much past a boot before the thing locks up. Intel systems become known as "unreliable", which is definitely not a position Intel wants to be in.

      Losing money _and_ losing your reputation is a heck of a double-whammy. I can't say I blame them for wanting to stop overclocking.

      I just can't imagine why they'd do it in a mechanism that could be defeated by the motherboard manufacturers....

      -JDF

    4. Re:Well... by hackstraw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Good theory. But most people don't know what a CPU is nor do they care. They buy a computer. They might upgrade a paripheral, maybe a harddrive, but rarely upgrade CPUs they come with the new computer.

      My point being, is that they will not blame Intel for the problems with a grey market overclocked machine that is unstable, they would blame the computer company. Just like when you and I do with a car. If the transmission goes, whe don't track down who manufactured the tranny, we just say that the whole car sucks.

      My guess at why they stop overclockers is because they are a pain in the ass. They screw around the the chips, fry them, and then try to return them. Overclockers _do_ know what a CPU is, and know who makes it, and they will just be causing trouble for Intel. Intel can gain nothing from overclockers. I would guess that the chip designers know a little more about their processors than the computer dork that plays around with jumper settings and bios so they can get 10-20% more performance and questionable reliablity.

      BTW, I am a reformed overclocker, and I could never really notice a 10 or 20% increase in speed without sitting down and measuring the difference. I have access to so many different computers now, that I often have to cat /proc/cpuinfo to tell how fast the machine is.

  3. Planned products don't bother me, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    it's the completed ones that are submarined that do.

    and Abit's stock creeps up a bit...

  4. Locking Chips by My+name+isn't+Tim · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think it may just be that Intel doesn't want bad word of mouth. People see Fred's Intel based system runs awfully, little do they know he has it overclocked to the max and form opinion.

  5. It's all about the Benjamins by Dark+Kenshin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Could it be that Intel is keeping DDR2-667 support for yet another revision of their new chipsets even though the memory support is clearly here today?"

    Wow, a company may be holding back on technology for a future money making opportunity? This has never happened before!

    --
    "I only know 2 things: The love for me, and the fear of me."
    1. Re:It's all about the Benjamins by servognome · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not just Intel, AMD did the same thing back when the first athlons came out.
      They aren't ripping the customer off. The customer decides they will pay X amount of $ for Y performance. The chip dealer agrees to sell you a chip guaranteed for that performance. You got exactly what you paid for, if you happen to get something that is potentially better, consider yourself lucky.
      There are a number of reasons companies do this.
      - If their yields skew a little towards the high end, they may run out of mid-level chips to meet demands, so they sacrifice some of the high-end ones to meet the difference.
      - Quality. Remember those old 5 1/4" floppys, some were double sided, some were single sided. You just put a notch in the single sided floppy and you had instant double sided. 99% of the time it was fine, but the other 1% you could have data errors or bad sectors on that other side.
      - Mass Production. Its cheaper to have one design and disable the unneeded/untested parts. 64-bit is on existing prescott chips just disabled. Does it work 100%? maybe, maybe not. Intel may not have been comfortable with it, so its disabled until they do more testing. The only reason its there is because its potentially cheaper to just flip a switch and turn it on if the design is good.

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  6. Umm... by Raven42rac · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just because you can overclock your memory to that speed does not mean the manufacturer is greedy. It just means it can be done. Safely? Maybe. Possible? Certainly.

    --
    I hate sigs.
  7. What were they thinking ? by itsnotthenetwork · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is surprising. Intel surely would realize that whatever controls they put on there would eventually be bypassed. Sounds like a marketing decision rather than an engineering decision.

  8. Re:intel holding back? by jacksonyee · · Score: 2, Insightful
    sure why not? intel could be postponing on brining out their biggest guns for later on when it would be better to shoot them off, they might also want to see what the competition will do and bring out before they bring out their best, but on the same note, who knows what else Intel might be holding back? They might have some other amazing thing that they are waiting to spring on the public at an appropriate time...

    Well, Intel has been showing off a couple of pretty neat technologies at the various trade shows around, and I'm definitely looking forward to desktop chips based upon the Pentium-M architecture.

    You're right though - they've spent a lot of money stress testing this chipset for reliability and performance, and surely must know of its capabilities. If they can get people to buy this chipset now and buy it again in the future, then they will. They did the same thing with the Celerons and the high-yield P-IIs in the past, so why not now? Supply and demand equals more profits, right?

    I'm actually pretty excited about DDR2, as our memory speeds and hard drive transfer speeds are two of the largest bottlenecks in our current systems. High-speed DDR2 (performance won't really increase that much at the moment since DDR2 has higher latency than DDR) paired with hypertransport will be wonderful to watch.

  9. It isn't that complicated... by Theovon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1) A major reason to not support the higher speed is that chip production yields are increased.

    2) Why not speed-grade the parts and sell two models? Not cost effective at this time.

    3) Futhermore to release one model how and then another model later maintains a more even revenue stream than two models now and then none later.

    4) Most likely, spreading it out also increases total revenue due to the people who buy one and then upgrade to the next.

  10. I've come to expect this from Intel... by ameoba · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In Intel's long tradition of pushing a new technology before it actually surpassed the previous generation (P2, P4, P4-Prescott) DDR2 is, at best, on par with systems already in place.

    If you look at some benchmarks of DDR2 performance, you have to wonder why anyone would even consider buying it right now.

    "Expect DDR2 memory at 533MHz to be comparable to DDR1 at 400MHz, but don't expect to see any "noticeable" memory bandwidth performance gains till DDR2 667 and above with low timings!"

    --
    my sig's at the bottom of the page.
  11. In other words... by MisanthropicProgram · · Score: 2, Insightful

    marketing.
    They don't want to keep pushing the envelope to quick. Otherwise, their future market is gone. Meaning, since technological advances are happening slower (in regards to chips) they have to milk the current tech as long as they can. Don't want to sell everything this year - there won't be anything next year.

  12. Re:Turn the question around by LqqkOut · · Score: 4, Insightful
    They sell it for $500 for the same reason that Canon is selling toned-down versions of the EOS 10-D

    There's a huge market segment that purchases equipment that's one step below bleeding edge just for the price break. Could it be that there's more money to be made by soft locking a single product than to manufacture multiple products?

    This sorta reminds me of the boon brought by the Celeron 300A

    --

    -- In Soviet Russia, radio listens to YOU!

  13. Re:Turn the question around by baylanger · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Intel grades their chips. They mark each chip with the speed that they feel comfortable selling with Intel's name and warranty.

    True, if we don't overclock our Intel chip -- the CPU will last 10 years. If we overclock our CPU the right way, *still* stable, our CPU might last only 3 years -- if we're lucky perhaps 9 years!

    Since the past 15 years, I've always been upgrading my computer every ~3 years.

    If my CPU blow in 2 years, by then a 3.4GHz CPU might cost me perhaps 200$ but I will probably buy the latest and greatest.

    If it blow in 3 years -- Honey, the computer is dead -- we need a brand new computer -- Honey, by the way, we don't have the money anymore to visit your mother this coming weekend!

  14. Re:Turn the question around by pchasco · · Score: 1, Insightful
    Quote:

    Turn the question around. Instead of asking "why buy $1000 3.4 GHz chip instead of $500 3.2 GHz chip", ask this: how come Intel doesn't label that second chip "3.4 GHz" and sell it to you for $1000?

    That would be $500 extra revenue for Intel. How come they don't do it?

    Nope. It's supply and demand. If there's a higher demand of the 3.2 gigahertz cpu, then they'll mark more as 3.2 to maximize profits. A $1000 3.4 gigahertz cpu with a $700 profit isn't making them any money sitting in a stockpile. Whereas a 3.4 gigahertz cpu marked for 3.2, sold for $500 made them $200.
  15. Re:Turn the question around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    There's a huge market segment that purchases equipment that's one step below bleeding edge just for the price break.

    Yeah, the smart half.

    Anyone who's been paying attention for the past 10 years knows that there will always be something newer and flashier next year which drives the costs down again. So why spend the cash on the bleeding edge chip (e.g. 3.4Ghz) when you can spend 1/4 to 1/3 as much on something only slightly slower (the 2.8Ghz chips) which is 80-90% as fast as the bleeding edge model.

    Computer manufs are still stuck back in the day when every year doubled performance and it was well worth it to upgrade.

  16. In fact, it's 667 by Jisakiel · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Because I think the exact number is something like 666.66... Which as you ought to know, rounds to 667. But 333.333 rounds to 333. See? :)