Premium Pentium Outperforms Top Chips

[Brillow_Head]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores/

 

Someone read this all the way through and figure out what the catch is....this is too good to be true!!

Edited May 11, 2006 by Brillow_Head

[NOFX]

i dont see any catch.. I knew you couldn't change the multiplier on a the Pentiums, but I never thought a CPU that has a standard 133 bus would run on a 215, which is nothing short of amazing. If I need a cheap webserver, I may built a machine with one of those chips and replace my A64 if its faster!

[Cobalt]

"This is bound to cause lamentation among the elite circle of users who've invested big bucks in their high-end systems, if not outright wailing and rending of garments."

 

They were talking about me. I am currently rending my garments.

[mohawk]

i'd still stick with my AMD for gaming

[Brillow_Head]

Looks like you'd have to pretty much handpick your chip, and return it immediately if the core voltage is higher than 1.35V otherwise you're not going to get anywhere near the speeds they bosted to.

 

As for performance...the benchmarks show it all...it leads above pretty much everything.

[Vovik]

kewl

[Vovik]

also, i hear that those 3.4 dual cores could go up to 5Ghz if not more

[Guest zerodamage]

That is freakin awesome. Intel finally got something right (unintentionally)

[Cobalt]

Heheh...accidentally is the only way something like that would happen ZD. Now if I only needed a 4ghz processor.

[dragonfly]

Now if I only needed a 4ghz processor.

 

Yep. I am still pretty sold on the 4400+

[Cobalt]

My overclocked 4200+ is still cutting it for me. I have a feeling other then the whole "you have to have one specific core volt chip" that there is going to be some long term stability issues.

[appalachian_fox]

Someone read this all the way through and figure out what the catch is....this is too good to be true!!

 

My two cents would be that the catch is the incredible power consumption of the processor at that speed. Read that as: Almost run two of those computers for the price of one overclocked one, in terms of power, though you would comfortably heat a sizable room with the heat it must throw off. Of course, that's not a very energy-efficient way of heating a room, but still...

 

Also, you're increasing the voltage (pressure) across the chip, which is bound to speed the aging process of the chip. Of course, at $130 they are nearly (in terms of the processors they outperform) disposable. If I skimmed the article correctly, they outperform processors that cost close to $1000? If that's right, and if prices stay constant (yeah, I know...) you can replace the processor every six months for 3.5 years and still come out ahead by $90. Or, you can wait a year for the price of the processors to fall to $500, and two at $130 and one at $500 still beats out $1k. So, increased processor aging isn't much of an excuse, but it's noteworthy.

[nut]

wow is that worth switching over? from AMD to Intel??

[TheReverend(c)]

Must be a typo. I cant beleive that. A chip that cheap that outperforms current "top of the line" cpus. Must be $1300 instead of $130. You would think this has to be true if this chip is so much better at that price that it would be incredibly stupid to charge nearly a grand for anything else and still expect the public to buy it.

[Laz.e.rus]

I read 50% of it.

It ran benchmarks and such, but any one see how long they primed it or anything else? Im wondering how stable it really is ( I see they said things like ...it booted).

And of course, like above, it may go into meltdown every two weeks using that power.

[Cobalt]

This is no joke guys. The 20x multiplier is what does it with that chip and it really does cost $130. The problem with all of it is what fox said, the power consumption. Overclocked to 4ghz the processor uses 200 watts of power for the processor alone. You are going to need to spend like $200 on a power supply to be able to run that bad boy. The unit will also not function reliably on air cooling so you would need to watercool the rig too.

[J. Dunlavy]

Overclocking is dangerous. You must monitor your rig very closely after doing major adjustments like that. IMO, it's too much of a pain to maintain and thus it's just easier to buy stock CPUs (AMD) and marginally overclocked when you need it.

 

For me, AMD reigns supreme.

Edited May 13, 2006 by J. Dunlavy

[Cobalt]

Wow Dun, there wasn't anything in that post about raining fire or inciting violent overthrows or anything! Heheheheh... I am an AMD fanboy at heart too.