If a Duron is missing pins, exactly what does it mean?

[PlunX]

I got my Duron 600MHz today and it's missing nine pins.. I know that some Durons are made like this (or are all of them made like this?), but what does this mean?

 

[VotTak]

That you will not be able to unlock multiplier on your CPU and the only way to overclock your CPU will be through FSB, which is kind of limited because you will not be able to raise it higher than 115-120MHz.
But don't worry, it is not the case yet. No pins are missing on Durons and TBirds even on CPUs made after week 35.

 

[PlunX]

The RAM that I'm going to use with my new motherboard is only PC-100.. Does this mean that I probably won't be able to overclock it at all?

 

[zzzz]

there are some pins missing in ALL durons but thats normal!
That does not mean anything unless those pins are near the edge.
also with durons you can do multiplier overclocking so memory shouldn't be a problem.

 

[robinhung]

Just by saying missing pins doesn't prove anything. Try the pencil trick and see if you can unlock the CPU. Won't waste you much time and money.

JUST DO IT!

 

[Gringo]

AMD has not yet started yanking pins on their processors, IAFAIK. the latest (august/september) AMD datasheets do not indicate that the pins are yanked...check out the Athlon PGA document from athlon. overclockers.com (no affiliation) is also saying that all of the late-week CPUs that they've seen/heard about are not mising pins.

note that it does appear that there are pins missing from the pin array (there are some missing at regular intervals); that is normal. check out these pictures at the review-zone (no affiliation); these are what the PGA should look like. If the L1-bridge-associated pins were missing, there would be a clump of 4 pins missing from (you guessed it) right under the L1 bridge.

Even if those pins were missing, you could OC the hard way: adjusting the L2-7 bridges by hand. Toms' hardware has shown how to do this.

so, the rumor is false. IMHO, AMD probably wont ever resort to pulling pins like that.

btw, no affiliation with AMD (or anyone else for that matter) either.

(edit: oops, jacked a link)