Celeron overclocking mania

This month's C'T is out, with a review of the Celeron 366 and 400 which exist in a socket 370 variety. Intel first moved to slots because the L2 of the Pentium Pro was expensive: it took up Fab capacity for low margin parts (SRAM). Cartridges could use others' SRAM. But now, the trend with smaller processes, is to put the L2 on the die, making cartriges expensive. Hopefully this won't mean the end of the SMP-Celeron days. Intel is also expected to add a circuit which prevents over-clocking in its chips... a shame since Danish company Asetek, which makes CPU cooling equipent, claims they can overclock Celerons to 600Mhz, while running at 550Mhz has been independently verified in Ohio.

My Celeron 300a

[MacJedi]

The box im writing this on right now is a Celeron 300a clocked up to 450. And thats just with a regular fan, nothing extra-special cooling wise. Im sure with a three fan "polar bear" I could get get it higher but im not going to press the issue, a 450 for $100 is fine by me.

course, i'd love to be running a G3 but its all about finances, sigh.

Bah!

[Special J]

Intel isn't locking down overclocking to prevent counterfeits; That's just a convenient side-effect. They just want to stop over-clockers.

Hmmm...If I decide to soup up the motor in my car, Dodge doesn't seem to object (besides screwing my warranty).

Intel should be flogged...

[BadlandZ]

Uh, Socket 370 isn't socket 7.

K, that makes sence

[BadlandZ]

Ok, that would make sence.

preventing overclocking is a good thing

[sengan-home]

Actually you can use PROM type technology: just burn the relevant values into the register.

Overclocking bad?

[dattaway]

Is Intel preventing overclocking due to complaints and returns due to reliability and consumer warranty returns? If so, why not have a section of the CPU dedicated to performance management that has a PROM that records runtime conditions and averages? Things like runtime maximum and mean temperatures and clocking can be recorded. Adding the traces and the read only instructions to access these parameters that could prove any consumer abuse of a returned chip would take less than a thousand transistors.

That way, those of us who want to void the warranty and experiment with full performance can. I am using a Celeron 300A at 464MHz (504 was tried for a few minutes once...) It runs cool and I doubt ion migration will hapen at cool temperatures.

preventing overclocking is a good thing

[Steve Baker]

Actually the technically best solution (for end users) would be to encode the chip with a unique identification code that would tell you what speed the CPU is supposed to run at, but wouldn't prevent fools from doing what they will with it.

Got me a 366 and a BH6.

[Chas]

Need to get some high quality RAM, a case, and a HD. Oh yeah, and a "Celery Sandwich" [computernerd.com].

About the ONLY thing I'm not happy about is Intel's decision to penalize people who want to experiment with the chips THEY BUY.

I can understand that they want to stop people from remarking chips and selling them OC'ed. But locking the chip down is NOT the way to go about it. You annihilate a market of people who like to tweak the hell out of their systems. Now I can also understand that Intel isn't happy about selling 450 Mhz chips for $80 when they're trying to bleed $400 more out of people. But these people are the legitimate owners of the chips they buy. Why keep them from taking their own risks?

I'll admit. I am NOT a chip designer, but I would think it cannot be that hard to alter the standards for a chip. Have an extra register in the chip that is read at boot time. Something that would read like:

• Chip: Intel Celeron 300a
• Multiplier: 4.5 (LOCKED)
• Bus Speed: 100 Mhz
• Chip Speed: 450 Mhz

  • Even if it came up as:

  • Chip: Intel Celeron 300a
  • Chip Speed: 450 Mhz

  With such a setup, you would PHYSICALLY have to alter a chip (as opposed to just the cosmetic angle of scrubbing off the case and silk screening on another chip ID.

  Intel is attacking the wrong group of people with this. They're not hurting the remarkers any. There's TONS of 300a's out on the market and 450 Mhz will be a pretty good standard for another year or so yet. They'll still make a killing ripping people off regardless.

  Ah well. I'll take what I can get while it lasts.
  
  Chas DN Team: 4688
  
  
  Chas - The one, the only.
  THANK GOD!!!

Socket 8 -> Slot 1

[prok]

Where do you get them and how much do they cost?

Socket 8 -> Slot 1

[prok]

Well, google is my new found friend, and I was actually looking for something that would allow me to put a slot 1 cpu into a socket 8 mobo.

Intel should be flogged...

[Nap]

...for coming back to the Socket-7 format, yet making their new mobos incompatible for no good technical reason! Grr.

Overclocking is good

[Drakino]

I am against manufacturers overclocking, but I don't want it to be stopped at my level. My Celeron 300 cost me $100 and outpeforms a PII 350 at $300 or so, by overclocking it. If Intel wants to stop overclocking, they need to come up with a solution that reports the origional safe running speed and current speed at boot, so a consumer would be aware of the overclocking. But don't stop the chips from doing this.

On another note, there are Slot 1 Celeron 400's, and the Socket 370 varity. Intel also released Socket 370 Celeron 300 and 333's when the new Celerons came out. So all those looking to upgrade, don't toss that Slot 1 board. Also a company is working on a Socket 370 -> Slot 1, similar to the Socket 8 -> Slot 1 converters for PPros.

preventing overclocking is a good thing

[dirty]

I have to say that that is 100% wrong! What intel should do instead is just modify the cpus so that they have an easily machine-readable "recommended" cpu speed on the cpu. The bios could then probe this value and if the speed that the system is running at does not match a warning could be printed. Intel is NOT conserned about the end user but about their own profit margin. They are doing no one a favor but themselves. They have realised that people finally figured out that they market the exact same cpus at different clock speeds and prices. They've been doing this atleast since the 486. It really pisses me off that they even think that they have the right to tell me how I use MY cpu.

The Microsoft Way

[Dert]

Must every industry company force people to pay for overpriced products? Intel obviously doesn't like the fact that you can get a 450 mhz chip for less than the ~$500 they charge for the P2... you can get a Celeron 300a for $90. Now they're releasing their equally over-priced "Pentium 3", a terribly misleading name given that it's not a 7th generation chipset (like the K7 is). Thank God for AMD....

intel sucks (not)

[daftfrog]

http://www.frostyplace.com/NewsHTML/1997/G3_Overcl ock/OverClock.html seems to show different information than what you've given. I've seen over clocked iMac's (scary!!!). Remember, it's not what your running on, or what your running that matters. What your doing is the important part.