Pentium 4 631 Overclocked to 8 GHz

Andreas writes "There are always those who are willing to take things one step further than others. A group of guys known as OC Team Italy is one of them. They recently pushed an Intel Pentium 4 631 to over 8000MHz using an ASUS P5B with modified voltage regulation and liquid nitrogen. Overclocking is cool and all, but this extends beyond what some would perhaps call useful. Still a milestone though."

Comments

Re:The problem with high clock is not just heat ..

[suv4x4]

Indeed. Light travels just under 2 centimetres in the 16 GHz period. The Pentium 4 core is not much smaller than this... it seems like they're pushing their luck on order-of-magnitude estimates alone.

Actually it travels around 18.7 meters in that 16GHz period. It'd travel just under 2 cm for a 16 THz chip.
You're making light way too slow. If it were THAT slow, then even 100 MHz chips would be impossible.

So: yea, sorry to break it for you, but a 16 THz chip maybe will never be possible (unless it's super tiny, I guess...).

Re:The problem with high clock is not just heat ..

[FST777]

I might be wrong, but for all I know, light has nothing to do with it. We're not talking photon-computing, right?

How fast electrical signals travel through the wires is depending on the material the wires are made of. Light has nothing to do with it. I highly doubt that the conductors used are up to the 16GHz challenge, but they might be at those temperatures.