Athlon Speed Limit?

[Darrenct]

I had an athlon 1.0 Ghz(266 FSB), at one time I overclocked it to 1.2 Ghz using only a stock HSF. I was amazed by this, because I always thought I would need some extra cooling for that kind of overclock.

The question I have is... It says that it has a cap at 1.2 Ghz, why is this? If I can get it to 1.2 at 55 degrees celsius, imagine how fast it could go if it was cooled. Do all Athlons have a clock speed limit?

Does anyone know anything about this?

[RangerJoe]

in a perfect world, no, they dont have a cap, i mean, in a perfect world, you could take a 486 to 20 ghz if you had enough cooling, but its not a perfect world.....so depending on your cooling, ram quality, motherboard, and cpu, you should be able to overclock more than 200 mhz...

[Darrenct]

I lent the pocessor to someone, but I will be getting it back soon... I'm pretty sure the processor itself had a designated speed cap of 1.2 Ghz. I know it was printed on something that came with the processor, I think it may have even been stamped on the core.
I heard a rumor that AMD made an excess of higher speed processors, so they lowered the multiplier on the high ones and sold them as smaller processors... The Cap was to prevent the Processor from being used as something bigger.
I don't know how legit that claim is though. I was hoping someone here would have more info.