[MatthewPapa]

The processor in question is a Pentium 4 670 Prescott, whose speed was designed by Intel at 3.8 GHz. The system used by the Japanese to push things to the limit is built around an ASUS P5WD2 motherboard with two 512 MB RAM CORSAIR PC2-5400UL modules of memory, and the cooling system was ARC Pot Revc.12.1xe LN2; the operating system installed on the system was Windows Server 2003.

After the preparations were done, the Pentium 4 670 Prescott processor reached 7132.82 MHz (375,4 MHz FSB x 19).

News Link: http://news.softpedia.com/news/7GHz-Pentium-6202.shtml
Guy's Blogg: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babe...50809%2Farchive

[Flipside]

Now theres my FSO computer

[Kosh]

I thought that was theoretically impossible.


So they were only able to get 7 GHz out of it? I am so disappointed.

[CP5670]

There was a guy on xtremesystems who got 7.2ghz on a P4 quite some time ago.

I would be much more interested to see a video card core pushed up like this though.

[Cobra]

So, America can only hit a 3.8 GHz while Japan hits 7.2 GHz? america just got pwned!

[EDIT] custom built cards can go as high as almost a gig of ram AFAIK.

[MatthewPapa]

Originally posted by Cobra
So, America can only hit a 3.8 GHz while Japan hits 7.2 GHz? america just got pwned!

[EDIT] custom built cards can go as high as almost a gig of ram AFAIK.

LMAO What the hell are you talking about? This is overclocking, 7.2 isnt the stock chip speed, 3.8 is.

[BlackDove]

Candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long.

No matter how much he frosts that CPU, it will never be stable enough.

[Flipside]

Cap'n , the IO Busses where ne'er designed tae take this kinda beating!

Just give me 5 minutes dammit Scotty! I'm on the end of level boss!


Sorry, it's late

[Grey Wolf]

No matter how high you clock it, it'll still be very inefficient. Give me a P6-based or Athlon-based CPU any day.

[vyper]

Give me grid computing.

[WMCoolmon]

Give me $1,000,000,000 and the combined research power of AMD and Intel's premier processor teams.

[phatosealpha]

Well, it's semi-impressive of course.  Suprising that they managed to get it to boot that high at all.

Of course, it's not like the thing is gonna run that way all day, or even for an hour or two.  Suicide benchmarking with Liquid Nitrogen.  Talk about your expensive hobbies.

[CP5670]

They don't say anything about how they tested stability, but it could be stable in theory.

I don't think that person I referred to earlier got it stable at all at that speed. It loaded up windows but was not capable of much else.

[MatthewPapa]

I doubt that they booted it at that speed. They probably overclocked with some kind of 3rd party software to adjust frequencies and memory timings after the operating system had been already loaded.

[TopAce]

I was never too keen on overclocking (stability > speed, you know ), but this is impressive.

[Grey Wolf]

Really, I'd go for Length of Use > Speed, but that's just me.

[phatosealpha]

Eh, I overclock. Stabilty > speed, but stability + speed > just stability.  Hard to argue with an extra 500 mhz on an A64 when it's running rock solid.  Might reduce lifespan some, though I'm not giving it extra volts so this risk isn't too great.  And by the time the overclock would caused reduced lifespan, the thing will be obsolete 6 different ways to sunday.


These guys though....they don't care.  Lifespan doesn't matter, temperature doesn't matter, and actual performance doesn't matter cause it ain't gonna be usable at that speed for any length of time.  Just a matter of "Is it gonna be stable long enough to get the CPU-z verification and maybe a quick superpi run to extend my e-penis."

[CP5670]

Eh, I overclock. Stabilty > speed, but stability + speed > just stability.  Hard to argue with an extra 500 mhz on an A64 when it's running rock solid.  Might reduce lifespan some, though I'm not giving it extra volts so this risk isn't too great.  And by the time the overclock would caused reduced lifespan, the thing will be obsolete 6 different ways to sunday.

That's how I see it too. Most overclockers (not these extreme guys) pay a lot more attention to stability testing and cooling setups than other users, so the average overclocked computer in the world is probably more stable than the average stock system.

I never managed the big overclocks a lot of people get on A64s though. I probably just have a crappy CPU (engineering sample, some type of D0, early manufacture date), but it was free so I can't complain.

[WMCoolmon]

If I overclocked my AMD64 CPU, I could probably burn my hand on the case.

As it is, it's borderline at times.

[StratComm]

I had my P4 trip thermal overload without overclocking earlier today.  Granted, I was playing a windows 3.1 game on it with "fast mode" on (meaning no delays to keep speed consistant) that was eating 100% CPU on virtually no RAM.  The thing could probably have fit into my L2 cache.  And granted, my room was probably well over 90 F at the time.  But still, the damned thing has a heatsink with a volume equivalent of a small laptop and a roughly 4-inch fan cooling it.  You'd think it'd at least give me a warning