Rob Cork
08-29-01, 04:47 AM
Ok, probably not, but now I've got your attention. No, don't go away, keep reading... cheers.
I was just talking to a friend who knows a bit about computers (he got me interested in them in the first place), but is only just getting into overclocking, about AMD and multiplier locks. I mentioned that the highest-end chips still seemed to be coming unlocked, whereas all the slower speeds were locked - and how no-one could explain it. That got me thinking again, trying to work out why. Then it hit me - by keeping the highest speed Tbird unlocked (which is easy enough to do - it actually requires less effort than locking it), AMD gives us overclockers a reason to buy it.
Now, from an overclockers point of view, with AMD's aggressive pricing, there's little point in buying a 1GHz locked tbird when for 10 or 20 pounds more you can get a 1.4GHz unlocked one.
Plus, with loads of overclockers out there tweaking the higher chips, AMD could get an idea of what the core is capable of - if there's enough people getting 1.4GHz chips to 1.5 or 1.6 under plain old aircooling it's a pretty safe bet AMD can release 1.5 and 1.6GHz tbirds in the future. People seem to be having problems getting higher than that though, at least regularly, maybe indicating that the core just isn't capable of more than that.
OK, I know AMD do all their own testing as well, but it could be a case of the old "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy. There will always be overclockers, so AMD drops prices to the point where 'casual' overclockers have no reason to oc any more, and the remaining hobbyists will buy only the high-end chips (as hobbyists, we simply want the highest speeds we can get). By 'allowing' us to oc the top chips, they can use our results to back up their own tests...
This is all really just tea-leaf reading, but I'd hope that with Palomino we won't see an outright multiplier lock, but maybe the highest end chips coming unlocked. If you can't get rid of overclocking, you might as well try and get them all to buy your most expensive chips, that way they don't do you any damage anymore. Apart from all those RMAs... :D
I was just talking to a friend who knows a bit about computers (he got me interested in them in the first place), but is only just getting into overclocking, about AMD and multiplier locks. I mentioned that the highest-end chips still seemed to be coming unlocked, whereas all the slower speeds were locked - and how no-one could explain it. That got me thinking again, trying to work out why. Then it hit me - by keeping the highest speed Tbird unlocked (which is easy enough to do - it actually requires less effort than locking it), AMD gives us overclockers a reason to buy it.
Now, from an overclockers point of view, with AMD's aggressive pricing, there's little point in buying a 1GHz locked tbird when for 10 or 20 pounds more you can get a 1.4GHz unlocked one.
Plus, with loads of overclockers out there tweaking the higher chips, AMD could get an idea of what the core is capable of - if there's enough people getting 1.4GHz chips to 1.5 or 1.6 under plain old aircooling it's a pretty safe bet AMD can release 1.5 and 1.6GHz tbirds in the future. People seem to be having problems getting higher than that though, at least regularly, maybe indicating that the core just isn't capable of more than that.
OK, I know AMD do all their own testing as well, but it could be a case of the old "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" philosophy. There will always be overclockers, so AMD drops prices to the point where 'casual' overclockers have no reason to oc any more, and the remaining hobbyists will buy only the high-end chips (as hobbyists, we simply want the highest speeds we can get). By 'allowing' us to oc the top chips, they can use our results to back up their own tests...
This is all really just tea-leaf reading, but I'd hope that with Palomino we won't see an outright multiplier lock, but maybe the highest end chips coming unlocked. If you can't get rid of overclocking, you might as well try and get them all to buy your most expensive chips, that way they don't do you any damage anymore. Apart from all those RMAs... :D