Anybody miss the intel "overdrive" line of processors?

Philippine Mango

Diamond Member
Oct 29, 2004
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I miss the line of intel processors called the "overdrive" line where they took newer technology pentiums and gave older boards a boost in performance, close to that of new systems.. It would have been nice though had intel continued with this and had done a better job of making themselves useful.. I mean it would have be really nice to see a 486 based board with clock speeds in the 300MHZ range at least and Pentium boards with clock speeds in the 700mhz to 1GHZ clock range, maybe even higher, no real reason WHY they couldn't have done this..
 

3chordcharlie

Diamond Member
Mar 30, 2004
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There is a reason - it's called AMD.

Competition in the processor market (real competition) drove prices through the floor, and left little room for selling chips with expensive adapters at a profit.
 

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
Super Moderator
Aug 22, 2001
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3rd Parties like PowerLeap have been offering adapters with that capability for years. Of course some boards are designed now with that capability too. I have no idea what the pricing comparison between PowerLeap and Intel overdrive CPUs was like though. I suppose there must be a market segement for this type of upgradability given how long powerleap has been around, and boards like the Asrock upgrade series.
 

zephyrprime

Diamond Member
Feb 18, 2001
7,512
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By the time Intel would have been able to make a 300mhz 486, a 600mhz p3 would already have been on the market. And the 486 would have suffered from the fact that it only had a 33mhz FSB. New masks and a new assembly line would have to be devoted to the manufacture of such a processor and devoting the manufacturing resources to a chip with such a small market would be uneconomical. Also, the VRM on a 486 probably couldn't handle anything running at 300mhz. The same sort of problems would have existed for a high speed Pentium.

I just wish Intel and AMD would have a some more platform stability. They are always introducing new sockets nowadays that hardly offer any improvements to the end user over the previous socket.
 

Zap

Elite Member
Oct 13, 1999
22,377
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Putting really fast CPUs into really old systems does work, but at the same time is overrated because you are paying a lot more for only an incremental increase and you're still stuck with an old platform.
 

Maximilian

Lifer
Feb 8, 2004
12,604
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I cry every other day because i miss the overdrive line :(

Seriously though it was a pretty niche product, neat but not too many would use them, it would most likely be cheaper just to buy a new board etc.
 

Geomagick

Golden Member
Dec 3, 1999
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The overdrive line was a very expensive way of upgrading just the CPU. However it was at a time when CPU performance was very much more related to the overall performance of the system.

Nowadays CPU performance is only a contributing factor in how fast and computer is. Memory technology, graphics, disk subsystems and the like all have a major impact on the overall perceived performance of the system.
 

aldamon

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Aug 2, 2000
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Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
3rd Parties like PowerLeap have been offering adapters with that capability for years. Of course some boards are designed now with that capability too. I have no idea what the pricing comparison between PowerLeap and Intel overdrive CPUs was like though.

I used a PowerLeap adapter and a Pentium 233 MMX in my Packard Bell Pentium 60 machine. Imagine that blistering speed! LOL. I couldn't get it to boot until I conned Intel into sending me an interposer for my "P120/133 OverDrive CPU that didnt' work." ;)

I actually played the original Half-Life on that POS with a Voodoo Banshee and 64MB of SIMMs.
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
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81
Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
I miss the line of intel processors called the "overdrive" line where they took newer technology pentiums and gave older boards a boost in performance, close to that of new systems.. It would have been nice though had intel continued with this and had done a better job of making themselves useful.. I mean it would have be really nice to see a 486 based board with clock speeds in the 300MHZ range at least and Pentium boards with clock speeds in the 700mhz to 1GHZ clock range, maybe even higher, no real reason WHY they couldn't have done this..

Considering how often performance is tied to chipset and memory performance (as well as video card), there's little point. There's no reason to take an SDR system and try to outfit it with a 3ghz processor, or even an i845 that only supports up to PC2100 single channel. And there's no reason to keep a PCI system around when all good cards are AGP (or now PCI express).
 

Philippine Mango

Diamond Member
Oct 29, 2004
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Originally posted by: Fox5
Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
I miss the line of intel processors called the "overdrive" line where they took newer technology pentiums and gave older boards a boost in performance, close to that of new systems.. It would have been nice though had intel continued with this and had done a better job of making themselves useful.. I mean it would have be really nice to see a 486 based board with clock speeds in the 300MHZ range at least and Pentium boards with clock speeds in the 700mhz to 1GHZ clock range, maybe even higher, no real reason WHY they couldn't have done this..

Considering how often performance is tied to chipset and memory performance (as well as video card), there's little point. There's no reason to take an SDR system and try to outfit it with a 3ghz processor, or even an i845 that only supports up to PC2100 single channel. And there's no reason to keep a PCI system around when all good cards are AGP (or now PCI express).

Not everyone games you know... I think if you could outfit a 486 with a 300MHZ processor or anything faster, it would make the machine sufficient for what most people do, daily browsing, word etc... It would also make a killer F@H machine! :p

Problem with powerleap is the fact that they're limited to what intel offers and so a system with a 66mhz FSB is not allowed to get a 1ghz+ processor because intel has not released a processor that would be compatible with their socket adapters and has a high enough multiplier :( Imagine doing a performance benchmark on a PII 66FSB With the LX chipset, and sticking in a 2GHZ processor! Sure it wouldn't be as fast as the modern systems but it would certainly kick a lot of ass and would be an awesome upgrade!
 

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
Super Moderator
Aug 22, 2001
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Originally posted by: aldamon
Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
3rd Parties like PowerLeap have been offering adapters with that capability for years. Of course some boards are designed now with that capability too. I have no idea what the pricing comparison between PowerLeap and Intel overdrive CPUs was like though.

I used a PowerLeap adapter and a Pentium 233 MMX in my Packard Bell Pentium 60 machine. Imagine that blistering speed! LOL. I couldn't get it to boot until I conned Intel into sending me an interposer for my "P120/133 OverDrive CPU that didnt' work." ;)

I actually played the original Half-Life on that POS with a Voodoo Banshee and 64MB of SIMMs.
Hey, that was stylin' back then :)
 

F1shF4t

Golden Member
Oct 18, 2005
1,583
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It would be pointless really, what would happen if u put a 7800gtx on a pci bus, it would be really slow, same thing would happen to the cpu, might as well get older slower one than put new one there and have it sitting idle most of the time. but i would be fun playing around with systems like that to see wht they can be used for.
 

aka1nas

Diamond Member
Aug 30, 2001
4,335
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They stopped being economical when it became possible for you to buy a new motherboard for less than what the adapter would cost.

Also, I don't think it's possible, or at least not practical, to have such a product for CPU generations that had a change in architecture. I.E. a socket 370 P4 overdrive CPU.
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
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Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
Originally posted by: Fox5
Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
I miss the line of intel processors called the "overdrive" line where they took newer technology pentiums and gave older boards a boost in performance, close to that of new systems.. It would have been nice though had intel continued with this and had done a better job of making themselves useful.. I mean it would have be really nice to see a 486 based board with clock speeds in the 300MHZ range at least and Pentium boards with clock speeds in the 700mhz to 1GHZ clock range, maybe even higher, no real reason WHY they couldn't have done this..

Considering how often performance is tied to chipset and memory performance (as well as video card), there's little point. There's no reason to take an SDR system and try to outfit it with a 3ghz processor, or even an i845 that only supports up to PC2100 single channel. And there's no reason to keep a PCI system around when all good cards are AGP (or now PCI express).

Not everyone games you know... I think if you could outfit a 486 with a 300MHZ processor or anything faster, it would make the machine sufficient for what most people do, daily browsing, word etc... It would also make a killer F@H machine! :p

Problem with powerleap is the fact that they're limited to what intel offers and so a system with a 66mhz FSB is not allowed to get a 1ghz+ processor because intel has not released a processor that would be compatible with their socket adapters and has a high enough multiplier :( Imagine doing a performance benchmark on a PII 66FSB With the LX chipset, and sticking in a 2GHZ processor! Sure it wouldn't be as fast as the modern systems but it would certainly kick a lot of ass and would be an awesome upgrade!

Gaming is less mem intensive than many other tasks, but slow memory hurts performance all around (after a point, like SDR memory for anything above 1.2ghz really starts to get hurt all around).
And most tasks people do are I/O limited, not cpu limited, and the rare things that are cpu limited are usually just as memory bandwidth limited.
 

hans007

Lifer
Feb 1, 2000
20,212
18
81
power leap and kingston , evergreen etc still sell this stuff.


that said, i don treally think competition was what drove the chips out. it is just that computers got so cheap you could just buya new one.

the overdrive lasted till just about the first pentiums.


when 486s were out a nice computer was like $4000 and motherboards were much more expensive as well as ram etc.

when intel commoditized chipsets with the pentium generation by making their own chipsets etc and computers were in the $2000 range it made less sense to use an overdrive. i think they still made a pentium 133 over drive for people with like pentium 60s and 75s but by then computers were like $1000.

at the time amd's chips pretty much all sucked nut sack. the k5, 5k86, 5x86 etc were not all that great, as the 5k86 was not even as fast as the cyrix version and there were pentiums out. etc. this was around when amd was being run into the ground by jerry sanders and nearly going bankrupt etc.
 

Philippine Mango

Diamond Member
Oct 29, 2004
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Originally posted by: hans007
power leap and kingston , evergreen etc still sell this stuff.


that said, i don treally think competition was what drove the chips out. it is just that computers got so cheap you could just buya new one.

the overdrive lasted till just about the first pentiums.


when 486s were out a nice computer was like $4000 and motherboards were much more expensive as well as ram etc.

when intel commoditized chipsets with the pentium generation by making their own chipsets etc and computers were in the $2000 range it made less sense to use an overdrive. i think they still made a pentium 133 over drive for people with like pentium 60s and 75s but by then computers were like $1000.

at the time amd's chips pretty much all sucked nut sack. the k5, 5k86, 5x86 etc were not all that great, as the 5k86 was not even as fast as the cyrix version and there were pentiums out. etc. this was around when amd was being run into the ground by jerry sanders and nearly going bankrupt etc.

Computers didn't get into the $1000 range until celerons were out/PIIs...
 

hans007

Lifer
Feb 1, 2000
20,212
18
81
Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
Originally posted by: hans007
power leap and kingston , evergreen etc still sell this stuff.


that said, i don treally think competition was what drove the chips out. it is just that computers got so cheap you could just buya new one.

the overdrive lasted till just about the first pentiums.


when 486s were out a nice computer was like $4000 and motherboards were much more expensive as well as ram etc.

when intel commoditized chipsets with the pentium generation by making their own chipsets etc and computers were in the $2000 range it made less sense to use an overdrive. i think they still made a pentium 133 over drive for people with like pentium 60s and 75s but by then computers were like $1000.

at the time amd's chips pretty much all sucked nut sack. the k5, 5k86, 5x86 etc were not all that great, as the 5k86 was not even as fast as the cyrix version and there were pentiums out. etc. this was around when amd was being run into the ground by jerry sanders and nearly going bankrupt etc.

Computers didn't get into the $1000 range until celerons were out/PIIs...

nah the first sub $1000 pc was the cyrix media gx based machine like waaaay back when pentium1 was still coming out.


i guess the 75s werent $1000 when they came out, but when the p133s and such were out and motherboards started becoming commoditized p75s were $1000. i mean p133s were not, but when the p133 was top of the line the p75 was under $1000
 

Fox5

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
5,957
7
81
Originally posted by: hans007
Originally posted by: Philippine Mango
Originally posted by: hans007
power leap and kingston , evergreen etc still sell this stuff.


that said, i don treally think competition was what drove the chips out. it is just that computers got so cheap you could just buya new one.

the overdrive lasted till just about the first pentiums.


when 486s were out a nice computer was like $4000 and motherboards were much more expensive as well as ram etc.

when intel commoditized chipsets with the pentium generation by making their own chipsets etc and computers were in the $2000 range it made less sense to use an overdrive. i think they still made a pentium 133 over drive for people with like pentium 60s and 75s but by then computers were like $1000.

at the time amd's chips pretty much all sucked nut sack. the k5, 5k86, 5x86 etc were not all that great, as the 5k86 was not even as fast as the cyrix version and there were pentiums out. etc. this was around when amd was being run into the ground by jerry sanders and nearly going bankrupt etc.

Computers didn't get into the $1000 range until celerons were out/PIIs...

nah the first sub $1000 pc was the cyrix media gx based machine like waaaay back when pentium1 was still coming out.


i guess the 75s werent $1000 when they came out, but when the p133s and such were out and motherboards started becoming commoditized p75s were $1000. i mean p133s were not, but when the p133 was top of the line the p75 was under $1000

The first sub $1000 PC may have been a cyrix (or amd processor) but I think that media gx wasn't until around the pentium 2 era.
 

Tweakin

Platinum Member
Feb 7, 2000
2,532
0
71
I remember those days, I had an ECS board with a 8MB ATi card, a 10GB WD Drive, 256MB memory and my trusty Intel 83mhz Pentium Overdrive running Win95...sweet!