Duner said:
Come on now, completely irrelevant. Try and take a JIUCB DLT3C and compare that to the JIXIB DLT3C or JIXIB DUT3C to see how they overclock. If you have the same stepping, of course the lower voltage chip will do better for the reasons you stated. However, having a crap stepping and the DLT3C means nothing. I know that voltage rating has always been important in picking chips, but IMHO not more important than the stepping itself.
I stand by what I said - within each "type" of processor (the T-Bred "A" DLT3C being a type, the T-Bred "B" DLT3C being a type, the T-Bred "B" DUT3C being a type, etc.)
stepping is completely irrelevant in determining overclockability.
Give me a JIUCB DLT3C, and a JIXIB DLT3C of the same weeks, and let me stick em' in my rig. using the
same hardware with each chip, the two processor's overclock/Vcore ratios will be almost identical, if not identical.
The JIXIB, JIUHB, JIUCB, NIUHB, KIUHB, and JIXHB Thoroughbred "B" DLT3C processors (of the same weeks)
all perform roughly the same - and any differences are not stepping dependant, but hardware dependant. If you have a bung powersupply you ain't going to get good results.
The myth that "some steppings are good" has been bred from
some individual's good results - vice versa with "bad steppings". Many, many factors contribute to an overclock; willingness to overvolt, hardware, cooling, etc. - this breeds discrepency. Many don't want to feed their chip too much voltage, and won't ever reach a certain overclock because of that for instance.
I guess it could be said that I belong to one school of thought, with "stepping matters" being the other school of thought. I believe this simply because it is what my experience, and the results I read here on the forums, and elsewhere, have lead me to believe - I am not preaching truth - only my (educated) opinion.
EDIT: more directly speaking, a DLT3C T-Bred "B" will overclock better than a DUT3C T-Bred "B" (with the same hardware), unless their is a fault with the processor. A DLT3C simply needs less voltage, and has more headroom.