Overclock new Duron & Athon Thunderbird (AMD Athlon (Thunderbird))

Member Name: vsiang

Product:	AMD Athlon (Thunderbird)
Date:	06/07/00 (1680 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, faster than Celeron, highly overclockable !!!

Disadvantages: Rare

Overcloking AMD CPUs is different from Intel CPUs. All Intel CPUs are multiplier locked, i.e. adjusting the multiplier in BIOS has no effect. As such overclocking is done via FSB. For example, the Pentium 550E is multiplier 5.5 x 100 FSB = 550Mhz. Increasing to 133 FSB yields 5.5 x 133 FSB = 733Mhz. Motherboards for Intel CPUs supports a wide range of FSB to facilitate overcloking.

AMD CPUs on the other hand, is NOT multiplier locked. But motherboards for AMD CPUs support only single FSB. So overcloking is done by varying the multiplier while keeping the FSB constant. In short, Intel = play with FSB, AMD = play with multiplier.

Unfortunately, the new batch of CPUs named Athon Thunderbird and Duron is rumoured to be MULTIPLIER LOCKED. This means there is no way to overclock AMD CPUs at all. Tom's Hardware Guide (www.tomshardware.com) proved this is WRONG. They manage to overclock the Duron 650 & 700 all the way to 950Mhz!!! Now is it up to the motherboard manufacturer to implement this feature (adjustable multiplier). AMD would not be pleased. Well, it is better to please us 'cause we ARE the one buying the product!

Good luck.

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