There’s an article over at Tom’s Hardware which describes what looks to be a rather odd AMD “innovation” for Phenoms. I quote:
“If you are running an upcoming 2.8 GHz Black Edition CPU, a motherboard with the old SB600 model (RD690) will keep the processor cores operating at 2.8 GHz. However, if you have a motherboard with the SB700 chipset, you will receive a free upgrade to 3.0 GHz. And if you get a motherboard with a SB750 chip, your processor will run at 3.2 GHz . . . .”
Forgive me, but I fail to see how this is any improvement over a plain unlocked Black Edition CPU. After all, a current Black Edition Phenom 9850 can be adjusted from the default 12.5 up to 15X.
The only advantage I see, maybe, is that the SB750 unlocks a 16X multiplier that is otherwise unreachable through current means. Whether that’s true for current Black Edition processors or just future ones remains to be seen, but this article, written back in late April, could imply that older processors may also benefit.
In any event, even that can’t fix a platform with CPUs that inherently can’t overclock very much to begin with and motherboards that can’t do much FSB/HT overclocking with them. I think Phenom overclockers would much rather have motherboards capable of decent FSB/HT rather than secret multipliers hidden in new multipliers.
Then again, the article mentions six “hidden pins” which control all this, which tells me that a little tape and or conducting fluid might be all one really needs to get a 16X multiplier. 🙂
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