Stepping

[GoPokes]

When someone is talking about a CPU and mentions its "stepping" what are they talking about, and how does better stepping allow higher OCing?

[David]

The stepping as I understand it is either something to do with how the cpu is made or its week or manufacture/type. I'm not entirely sure, I'll watch this thread.

[flounder43]

The stepping generally refers to a particular code that AMD puts on the core. Evidence shows that certain steppings yield higher overclocks.

I am posting a pic of a Duron as a sample. In this case, the stepping would be AKAA, also note the first character on the third line is a number, not a letter. Full stepping would be called AKAA9...
I would also refer you to http://www.athlonoc.com/stepmadness.php and http://www.athlonoc.com/stepping1.php for some interesting information.

[_Will_]

Thanks a lot for the info, Flounder. I've been curious about this for a while too. I'm getting my Artic Silver II in the mail soon for my koolance waterblock ( I won the compu-geeks drawing a while ago, w00t) and i'll have to check out what stepping I have. Ooooh, I'm getting giddy ;)