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Anand's Duron/Thunderbird O/C article

I'm in about the same boat. When they first did the previews of the Duron and the T-bird on Toms', they looked like the OC dream come true. Now, w/ AMD taking the 'big corporate view' and locking the shiznit outta their wonderful processors, I'm skeptical that I'll be buying one any time soon.
 
This a very big mistake from AMD. For the performance freaks under us that are going to build a system from scratch a 700 cbo and the new 815 chipset is the best solution right now. I was supposed to go for the Duron because of price, overclocking and upgrade path. AMD has taken a crucial advantage away.🙁🙁
But I have to build a value system for a friend of mine and I will still choose the Duron for him because of its price and upgrade path.
 
Oh c'mon! AMD just announced that the 1GHz Athlon was going for a price of ~$425. You can't beat that with a stick!!! Sure, it's disappointing and all that you can't get more for less by overclocking, but compared to Intel you can still get...uhh...more for less!!! Cheer up fellas. 😀
 
Although Duron/TB is still cheaper than P3s, but the idea of not being able to overclock is still very Sad.. 🙁
 
while I can't help feeling a little happy because I'm such an Intel biased jerk 🙂P) I still think it's ridiculous that AMD have completely locked their CPU's and I feel sorry for all your AMD people out there who had hopes of getting a nice OC outta this CPU 🙁
 


<< I still think it's ridiculous that AMD have completely locked their CPU's >>


You must feel the same way about Intel then 😉
 
Now imagine this... AMD locks the multiplier AND FSB for their chips. Bad for overclockers, but very good for AMD. Because of the extra revenue brought in where there used to be a void from illegally remarked chips, they can bring the price of their chips way down!
Now in a perfect world, that'd be the case. Getting a 700MHz Duron for $50-75 would be pretty darn nice now wouldn't it? We don't know where the clock-lock would lead, but lower prices would more than justify it! Instead of paying $200 for a 600MHz chip to overclock to 900MHz and potentialy fry it, you could just BUY a 900MHz chip for $250. (Estimated numbers.)
Sounds good, eh? Let's cross our fingers...
 
Hmm.. If you head over to AMDZone's bbs, theres a good thread(http://amdzone.pcstats.com/messageview.cfm?start=1&amp;catid=3&amp;threadid=17845) where people have figured that .. well, here:



<< But recall that the Athlon Classic had &quot;two&quot; Multiplier sets of signals, BP_FID, which went to the PLL/Multiplier, and FID which went to the system/bios for info/timing??...and if they did not &quot;match&quot;... no boot.

So is it possible that AMD may have designed Duron/Tbird in similar fashion, except that the &quot;info&quot; equivalent might be an &quot;info rom&quot; in the chip, loaded at the same time as the bridges are set open/closed??
It's only comparative speculation, but would explain why GNYF's and Cyr's 600 chips would not boot when set to 5X according to the bridges. But on the other hand, how did Asus A7V with FSB Multipliers get around that issue if true?? >>



Maybe the A7V doesen't have multiplier settings. Maybe that's why they took it out.

This correspond's to Anand's findings. A setting other than default, no boot. Hmm....






Interesting Register article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/11920.html

 
I can see why you guys are chafed by this, but it doesn't really bother me personally.

I'm a computer consultant, and building systems that I know can't be overclocked is actually an asset. It reduces my support cost because I don't get calls from people wanting to know why their system is unstable. It also means people who wanted an Athlon 950 machine will have to pay for it instead of overclocking my Duron 600 machine. I'm sure AMD feels the same way. And anything that hurts remarkers is fine by me. It's a purely economic decision.

On the other hand, completely locking the clock speed of their CPU's might backfire on AMD. There are many consumers who, although they never plan to overclock, base their buying decisions on the advice of a knowledgable friend. This friend, more enarmored with un-locked Intel processors, may tend to give them the incorrect impression that an Intel CPU would be better for them, even though, since they never plan to overclock, AMD clearly provides better value.

Now that I think about it, I really do think this is a bad tactic on AMD's part. It will probably alienate part of the computer enthusiast community whose opinions are so instrumental in the decisions of certain consumers. Then again, large OEM's will be happy that they do not have to deal with overclocking customers.

A more elegant solution would be to encode each chip with its &quot;stock&quot; multiplier in a similar manner to Intel's locking scheme. This stock multiplier could be read by the BIOS to report the intended speed of the CPU and immediately warn the user on POST that his system is running in an unsupported, overclocked environment.

It's too bad the EV6 bus is so stingy, or else AMD could just lock the multiplier ala Intel, and let us have our fun at 150 MHz FSB 🙂

Modus
 
Geez, that would suck! I was gonna build a friend of mine a new system based on the Duron and then overclock it, but now looks like I'll have to go some other way.
 
the companies piss me off, for not saying from day 1, you can't change multiplier.

Instead we got AMD sending tom, a unlocked chip, without labeling it Engineering Sample.

And we got Asus sending off a &quot;special&quot; enhancec A7V.

And of course there was that GREAT Gainwaird GF2. Unfortunately, Nvidia says that that GF2 won't ship, cause it won't meet Nvidia's guidelines.


come on companies, this is getting insane.
Send the shipping version or don't send anything at all
At the least say we won't be shipping this, but we sent it anyway.
 
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