Overclocking

[MoneyDontMatter]

I'm new to overclocking and have never been a fan of it. I have always prefered to pay a little more and sacrifice the performance gain for rock solid stability. I think this is the same reason I am still a fan of Intel processors and prefer them over AMDs. After seeing all of your great experiencing with overclocking I am considering it. What is the defference between an Intel P!!! Coppermine 600E run at 133 Mhz to make it run at 800 and an Intel P!!! Coppermine 800EB. Is the 800EB any higher grade silicon to let it run stable at these speeds. Also, I am planning on an Intel P!!! Coppermine 800E and thinking about running it at 133 Mhz FSB. This would, in theory put me over the 1 Ghz margin. We all know Intel has had trouble with their processors over 1 Ghz. Does anyone have any experience with this. Has anyone overclocled an 800 to over 1Ghz. What about an 850?

 

[MoneyDontMatter]

Are Intel's 133 Mhz processors anything more than their 100 Mhz processors run at 133 Mhz that cost more. Are they any better? Is it higher grade silicon?

 

[IaPuP]

Yes, it is higher grade silicon, despite some people's mis-informed reports otherwise.

If you are looking for stability and performance for a good price, buy a Duron 800. It will beat a PIII-750 in 95% of tests but costs under $100. (PIII-750 costs about $175 I believe).

If you're looking for performance at an Excellent price, buy a Duron 600 and run it 950-1Ghz.

Intel's bin-splits are much poorer than AMD's currently and your chances for successful overclocking are greatly diminished. Intel's MAXIMUM speed is generally about 1040Mhz while AMD's is around 1280MHz (for the ThunderBird) and about 1060MHz (Duron). There are a few handfulls of chips in the world that will beat this maximum but generally you should not expect to approach this value. The PIII-800e is a poor choice because at 133Mhz it is running 1066 which is implausable to impossible. Even the 750@1Ghz is VERY unlikely. Almost all ThunderBird (Athlon with P.E. cache) chips will run to 1Ghz and the higher speed 'copper' cored chips will run past 1.1-1.2Ghz.

Any "percieved" instability as a result of AMD chips is completely unfounded and generally based in the problems with VIA's MVP3 chipset (released about 3 years ago for the K6-2). There was also a timing issue with the GeForce and the old AMD750 chipset but that was resolved with a driver patch. The current crop of motherboards are as stable if not more stable than their PIII counterparts and the AMD CPU has fewer errata and generally similar to better stability.

There is currently no reason to buy Intel unless you already have an expensive Intel motherboard (worth $120+) or want a Dual Processor system.

Eric