AMD Thunderbird Bird Blue-750

User Report 9/5/00:Email from Chad:

“I just wanted to let you know I picked up two of these little Blue Meanies a few weeks ago. I get the same strange BIOS post of 1066 but WCPUID shows the right speed. Anyway, I’m running a modified Alpha PAL35T on these chips. One is perfectly stable @ 1.2 GHz and runs 47C/116.6F at a full load. The other runs at 1.1 GHz @ 48C/118.4F!!!!

These Blue Meanies frickin’ rock. All I can say is get ’em
while you can. Just wanted to let ya’ know!

Later – Chad

SUMMARY: First look at the rare copper 750MHz T-Bird – incredible performance at budget prices.

Ed and I went to a local Computer Show this AM on a Duron hunt – we bagged the big one!

Out primary purpose was to see if we could get some unlocked Durons at reasonable prices – could not. We saw about a dozen Duron 650s and 700s, all of which had the pins intact and some unlocked. The 650s were about $90 and the 700s about $110. With tax (many would not take resale certificate) the final price is not much different from what we saw on Pricewatch for unlocked CPUs. All the CPUs we saw were week 24 or earlier, so even if the L1 bridges were cut, all the pins were intact.

While searching around for Duron Deals, we came across the fabled BLUE T-Bird 750 MHz – we almost could not believe it. It was the only one we saw with a blue core in a sea of green; $181. We quickly scoffed it up and took it home to try out on the ASUS A7V and ABIT KT7. Both boards ran the CPU at 1100 MHz, although the ASUS could do it at 10×110 while the best the ABIT could muster was 105 FSB; 11 x 100 was OK.

The L1 bridges were cut and we connected them using a sharp pencil – worked great! I ran some real quick benches:

I am running Prime95 to see how stable this setup is (4 hours so far – no hiccups). I am very pleased with how cool it’s running – about 45C under stress (water cooled, ambient 27C). I think the copper interconnects have something to do with it – I was running the same temp with the Duron 650 @ 935.

A quick note on the A7V – running at a multiplier of 11 results in some strange BIOS readings; although the CPU is running at 1100 (verified in Si Sandra), the Post Screen shows 1066. I’ll check this out more thoroughly later. I suspect these settings are out of the expected range.

This is a quick look at what looks like a great deal – I don’t know how many of these are around, but if you can find one – GRAB IT!!

Email Joe