The Triumphant return of Power now = Unlocked CPUs 4 all!

[Overclocker550]

whats the point? all a64s are *already* unlocked from downwards and most people dont need higher multis, those that do can just buy a higher speed cpu to begin with.

 

[SomethingClever]

There's no way to put it lightly. I'm afraid you are wrong. The front side bus is pretty much the most important data path in a computer. A high multi will do nothing but reduce the front side bus. Multipliers by themselves do absolutely nothing. On the other hand, the memory flows through the front side bus making it absolutely crucial. Without going into a debate over latencies, its safe to say that the more memory bandwidth, the better. A high multiplier is useless, I repeat.

Thanks for the great replys everyone! While I can't simply take anyone's word for it that FSB is better, you have convinced me to do more research and run some benchmarks, so that I can prove to myself what works better.

 

[Seabee]

I just looked in your sig somethingclever. You have 3200 Corsair RAM, that should be able to 200 FSB stock. Why cant you get it to run 200?????

 

[Moto7451]

He's at 2.35GHz on a desktop barton (or so I'd be led to believe since it doesn't say XP-M). Desktop Athlons (Thoroughbred Bs, Thortons, Bartons) max out at ~2.3GHz. Unless he lowers his multiplier he can't get a 200MHz FSB, which very well may be impossible if he has a desktop chip (though I remember seeing a thread on cutting solder connection on the underside of the chip that was locking the multipliers in order to unlock CPUs).

 

[SomethingClever]

I do indeed have a desktop Barton, factory unlocked (AQXEA 0324). I just checked my records* and it appears 10 x 210 is the highest I've gotten stable...and I only tested that for 3 hours.

*I like to keep track of my OC attempts; I have several pages of notes with mults, FSBs, voltages and timings, plus how long it was Prime stable for. It comes in handy, especially so you aren't wasting time going over ground you have already covered.

 

[Gautam]

You should be able to do 11x210, and that would be much quicker than 13x180.

 

[SomethingClever]

You should be able to do 11x210, and that would be much quicker than 13x180.

I have tried that with the following settings: 1.7 vcore, 2.8 vdimm, 1.6 vdd, timings at 2.5-4-4-11. I'm guessing from my nots that it failed Prime in a matter of minutes (I really have to take better notes). It also appears that anything over 210 won't work.

Hmm, it looks like I missed one: 11 x 209, 1.75 vcore, same ram and nb voltages, and 2.5-5-5-11. That was stable for 9 hours. Seems like a good place to start!

 

[OC Detective]

OK the two problems with this "revelation" are firstly as already pointed out they already have then hence the multis available down the way and secondly mobiles are only for socket 754 you wont see socket 939 mobiles!

 

[The Coolest]

I'm still not sure why people think that the mobiles must be unlocked to use powernow!, it doesn't. Don't you remember the mods that people used to do to make their locked chips into mobiles and changing the multiplier freely?
AMD have locked their desktop chips so they can't be rebranded and resold as higher rated chips. With mobiles, its a different story, as those chips are not meant for the average joe, but for OEMs.

Regarding the PowerNow! in the opteron. All Hammer cores have PowerNow! (= Cool'n'Quiet), in the Opteron its just disbaled. As in A64 there is no hardware multiplier, like Petr has mentioned, all multiplier changes are done through powernow. As in all A64s Cool'n'Quiet is used, you can change the multiplier on it downward. an Opteron is completely 'locked' to its startup multiplier because it doesn't have powernow! enabled. Enabling powernow! on an opteron will just allow the user to do the same thing as we can do with the current A64s today: Change the multiplier from max. downward.