Why doesn't AMD unlock their desktop processors?

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
Getting a 33% on my A64 3000+ was great. Now everyone wants a 50% because of the C2D. Spoiled.

I really don't care that the Phenom 9850 is on the highend of the Phenoms, what I do like is that it is moderately priced. I think it's great that the 5000+ BE is about $90, and on the highend (for AMD anyway) the Phenom 9850 is only $235, and have unlcoked multipliers. What sucks is that Intel charges well over $1k for their highend parts for overclocking. Or back when the A64's were the chip to have, having an FX-57 or something that you spent $1k on... eek! I guess all I'm saying is I don't care where an unlocked multiplier enthusiast chip is in the hierarchy, but cost is far more important to me.

You are forgetting that Intel's low/mid processors are better than AMD's high-end. AMD doesnt have a chip that they could charge $1k for and anyone would actually buy.

I'm not forgetting, I'm just trying to make the point that I think most of us prefer an unlocked 'enthusiast' chip that costs a lot less then the $1k+ that the current Intel extreme chips cost or the old AMD FX chips used to cost whether that be at the top or bottom of the product range.

Who needs an unlocked multiplier when you can just up the FSB?

 

[ViRGE]

Even though AMD isn't at the top of the processor market, they still have to deal with counterfeiters like everyone else. Unlocked processors are begging to be dropped in to a whitebox system and then sold overclocked without the buyer knowing; in essence the counterfeiter gets to sell a $200 at a much higher price and pocket the difference.

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
You are forgetting that Intel's low/mid processors are better than AMD's high-end. AMD doesnt have a chip that they could charge $1k for and anyone would actually buy.

Are you saying that a E2x00 series is faster than say a X2 6400+?

Unless your an enthusiast you cant factor in a chips OCability as an advantage. With everything at stock, AMDs offerings are pretty damn competitive to intels low/mid end. However I dont think AMD has any high end offerings to even compete with intel.

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: Ocguy31
You are forgetting that Intel's low/mid processors are better than AMD's high-end. AMD doesnt have a chip that they could charge $1k for and anyone would actually buy.

Are you saying that a E2x00 series is faster than say a X2 6400+?

Unless your an enthusiast you cant factor in a chips OCability as an advantage. With everything at stock, AMDs offerings are pretty damn competitive to intels low/mid end. However I dont think AMD has any high end offerings to even compete with intel.

Depends on what you classify as low end...

X2 6400+ is about 1.5 or more as expensive as the E2xxx Series so it better damn well be quicker!

Any Intel 45nm Dual Core beat outs the entire AMD Dual Core lineup, and I would consider that low to mid range as prices vary from 133-266 USD. There are no longer any "high-end" Dual Cores. That ended with the Core 2 Extreme QX6700.

E2xxx are budget dual cores, with the Celeron E1xxx Series being value, AMD is competitive up to around the E4xxx Series for Dual Core offerings and some of the older E6xxx Series, if your talking stock clocks.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
Getting a 33% on my A64 3000+ was great. Now everyone wants a 50% because of the C2D. Spoiled.

I really don't care that the Phenom 9850 is on the highend of the Phenoms, what I do like is that it is moderately priced. I think it's great that the 5000+ BE is about $90, and on the highend (for AMD anyway) the Phenom 9850 is only $235, and have unlcoked multipliers. What sucks is that Intel charges well over $1k for their highend parts for overclocking. Or back when the A64's were the chip to have, having an FX-57 or something that you spent $1k on... eek! I guess all I'm saying is I don't care where an unlocked multiplier enthusiast chip is in the hierarchy, but cost is far more important to me.

You are forgetting that Intel's low/mid processors are better than AMD's high-end. AMD doesnt have a chip that they could charge $1k for and anyone would actually buy.

I'm not forgetting, I'm just trying to make the point that I think most of us prefer an unlocked 'enthusiast' chip that costs a lot less then the $1k+ that the current Intel extreme chips cost or the old AMD FX chips used to cost whether that be at the top or bottom of the product range.

Who needs an unlocked multiplier when you can just up the FSB?

You're assuming that all CPU's in the future will have motherboards that can run stable with highly overclocked FSB's. Not to mention it's nice to have that extra option to tweak your overclcok with the unlocked multiplier... having that may let you run your ram at a better speed, keep your FSB/Memory synced, etc. I'm not saying it's 'must have', but now that I've played around with this Phenom I think it's a pretty nice option. Right now ther E8400 is $190, what if Intel releases a $215 version with an unlocked mulitplier? Not all, but plenty of people wouldn't mind having that for the small premium over the standard version.

 

[Nemesis 1]

http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tm...nt-view-37816-135.html

 

[Jax Omen]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
You're assuming that all CPU's in the future will have motherboards that can run stable with highly overclocked FSB's. Not to mention it's nice to have that extra option to tweak your overclcok with the unlocked multiplier... having that may let you run your ram at a better speed, keep your FSB/Memory synced, etc. I'm not saying it's 'must have', but now that I've played around with this Phenom I think it's a pretty nice option. Right now ther E8400 is $190, what if Intel releases a $215 version with an unlocked mulitplier? Not all, but plenty of people wouldn't mind having that for the small premium over the standard version.

God, the enthusiasts would go INSANE for an unlocked 45nm wolfdale at sub-$300 prices.

wolfies are assumed to be FSB-limited right now, aren't they?

 

[taltamir]

50% OC means taking a 3ghz CPU and making it 4.5GHz... last I checked you need liquid nitrogen and serious voltage increase to get even a wolfdale to do that, and a wolfdale is the most OCable CPU ever made.

with expensive air cooling, expensive motherboard, and a voltage increase you can PROBABLY get 33% OC on a wolfie, increasing it from 3 to 4ghz, but that is a lot of work and cost of extra components.

And if intel sold a 300$ unlocked wolfie then nobody would be buying their 1000+$ cpu lines... considering the 1000$ CPU costs THE EXACT SAME TO MAKE as a cheaper quad core, it makes no financial sense to them.

 

[coldpower27]

Originally posted by: taltamir
50% OC means taking a 3ghz CPU and making it 4.5GHz... last I checked you need liquid nitrogen and serious voltage increase to get even a wolfdale to do that, and a wolfdale is the most OCable CPU ever made.

with expensive air cooling, expensive motherboard, and a voltage increase you can PROBABLY get 33% OC on a wolfie, increasing it from 3 to 4ghz, but that is a lot of work and cost of extra components.

And if intel sold a 300$ unlocked wolfie then nobody would be buying their 1000+$ cpu lines... considering the 1000$ CPU costs THE EXACT SAME TO MAKE as a cheaper quad core, it makes no financial sense to them.

300 USD wolfdale ala E8500 unlcoked wouldn't be too bad, Dual Core are no longer high end for Intel, so it might be possible to get away with it.

The 1000 USD CPU's are Quad Core's so they are for the extreme.

 

[OCGuy]

wolfies are assumed to be FSB-limited right now, aren't they?

Umm....no. Wolfies are considered to be Vcore limited. As in, what Vcore am I comfortable with, will I go over 1.4v for 24/7 use?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: SlowSpyder
Getting a 33% on my A64 3000+ was great. Now everyone wants a 50% because of the C2D. Spoiled.

I bought my E2140s explicitly expecting a 100% overclock. I was not disappointed.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Even though AMD isn't at the top of the processor market, they still have to deal with counterfeiters like everyone else. Unlocked processors are begging to be dropped in to a whitebox system and then sold overclocked without the buyer knowing; in essence the counterfeiter gets to sell a $200 at a much higher price and pocket the difference.

Umm, except that processors contain an ID string, which is displayed when the user clicks "Properties" on My Computer, and it displays that ID string along with the Mhz and RAM amount. So it's pretty easy to tell if you are running an overclocked system.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Last one I bought sure wasn't...

Black Edition doesn't really count either. Selling a $1000 unlocked Phenom that can just barely compete with a $300 locked Core2 is not a great idea. Unlock a $300 Phenom, and people might be interested.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103249

i think your seriously lost my friend.

That to me looks like a 235 dollar unlocked phenom.

If your paying 1000 for a unlocked phenom, i have some open front beach property in Ohio id like to sell you as well.


Seriously tho, only intel charges rediculous prices for unlocked processors now.

I have a bridge if you are interested... very useful commodity to own...

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

wolfies are assumed to be FSB-limited right now, aren't they?

Umm....no. Wolfies are considered to be Vcore limited. As in, what Vcore am I comfortable with, will I go over 1.4v for 24/7 use?

uhh.. i dont even push my QX past 1.4V.

You gotta dangerous ball your playing with over there if you go higher then 1.4V on 45nm.

Originally posted by: PlasmaBomb

I have a bridge if you are interested... very useful commodity to own...

LOL i stand corrected. In Ohio, there is something that looks like a beach. However its a lake.

Should of said ocean front property in Nevada instead.

 

[TheInternet1980]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
i have some open front beach property in Ohio id like to sell you as well.

orly?

Is it near Cleveland?

Specs/Details plz. THXBAI

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
People forget that almost 95% is not 99% of the population doesn't overclock making unlocked versions pretty much useless.

Isn't this a good reason not to lock the processors? 1% of people will overclock the hell out of them and write big articles about how cool it is. It's basically free advertising.

Whatever is pimped on the forum is what I usually buy. The forum said 8800GT was a good video card, and it is. The forum told me to get a C2D 6600 because it's the cheapest conroe with 4mb L2 cache, and it has a good 9x multiplier. This forum also told me to buy an athlon 2500+ and overclock it to 3200+, which I did, and it worked.

If Anandtech was having thread after thread of people saying you should buy a low-end phenom or athlon64 and overclock it, a lot more of us would be using phenom processors right now.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
People forget that almost 95% is not 99% of the population doesn't overclock making unlocked versions pretty much useless.

Isn't this a good reason not to lock the processors? 1% of people will overclock the hell out of them and write big articles about how cool it is. It's basically free advertising.

Whatever is pimped on the forum is what I usually buy. The forum said 8800GT was a good video card, and it is. The forum told me to get a C2D 6600 because it's the cheapest conroe with 4mb L2 cache, and it has a good 9x multiplier. This forum also told me to buy an athlon 2500+ and overclock it to 3200+, which I did, and it worked.

If Anandtech was having thread after thread of people saying you should buy a low-end phenom or athlon64 and overclock it, a lot more of us would be using phenom processors right now.

no... not really.

Anandtech said watercooling was dying, and that it can be matched by high end air.

Well, they were so WRONG about this statement. Its not dying, its growing. There is more companies out now, and more products. Also High end air gets gobbled by medium tier water.

Its how people who have the product react. You need to keep forums and main articles out of the picture. Its true the main articles get more hits, however the forums is what convinces people more to buy on the bandwagon.

This is why the forum also elected mods in each catigory. We need to use good judgement on what is true and what is absolute BS.

example, someone coming onto the forums saying he's running a 5ghz Q6600 on air.

But no if anandtech said AMD was better in OCing, you'd see Mark and probably half the other elected mods give derek a very hard time on why one of the authors posted that. Thats if the senior mods didnt give him the 3rd degree first.

 

[Odeen]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Well, the arguement your having with is very over expecting. It wasnt until C2D arch, that we started taking 50% overclock as almost given.

Seriously, you new people to overclocking, welcome to the hobby however, your asking for too much.
You havent seen what extreme overclocking does on components on the long term aspect, most likely cuz you been replacing it faster then its burning out. <no harm if it doesnt go down>

Actually....
Summer '98: Celeron 300A @ 450MHz
Summer/fall '99: Celeron 366A @ 578 MHz (BX Powa!)
Replaced that with a P3-500E (Coppermine) @ 750MHz (Via chipset board with async RAM speed control and Matrox G400 video card that was tolerant of odd AGP speeds)
Replaced that with a 1.33GHz T-Bird (no overclocking there)
Replaced that with a Pentium IV 1.6A @ 2.56GHz
Replaced that with an Athlon XP 1700+ (1.467GHz) @ 2.2 or 2.3 GHz
Replaced that with an Athlon XP 2500+ @ 2.3GHz
Replaced that with a Pentium IV 2.4C @ 3.2 GHz (only 33% overclock)
Replaced that with a Pentium IV 2.8C @ 3.73GHz (M0 stepping powa!)
Replaced that with an Opteron 165 @ 2.7 GHz
Replaced that with a Core2Duo E6300 @ 3.15 GHz
Replaced that witha Core2Quad Q6600 @ 3.6GHz

So, for most of the last TEN YEARS, it's been possible to buy either an Intel or an AMD CPU that overclocks by at least 50% using nothing more than a high-end (for the time) air cooler, costing less than $50. No water cooling, no motherboard modifications beyond replacing northbridge thermal goop with Arctic Silver. Call me spoiled, but if it doesn't OC by 50% with relatively little fuss, I'm not really interested.

 

[Odeen]

Originally posted by: taltamir
50% OC means taking a 3ghz CPU and making it 4.5GHz... last I checked you need liquid nitrogen and serious voltage increase to get even a wolfdale to do that, and a wolfdale is the most OCable CPU ever made.

with expensive air cooling, expensive motherboard, and a voltage increase you can PROBABLY get 33% OC on a wolfie, increasing it from 3 to 4ghz, but that is a lot of work and cost of extra components.

But replace the mid-range 3GHz chip with a low-end 2.66GHz chip (i.e. E8190, which was supposed to be $163 six months ago), and that same overclock to 4 GHz is now 50% on a nearly budget-level component. Much more intriguing.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: taltamir
50% OC means taking a 3ghz CPU and making it 4.5GHz... last I checked you need liquid nitrogen and serious voltage increase to get even a wolfdale to do that, and a wolfdale is the most OCable CPU ever made.

with expensive air cooling, expensive motherboard, and a voltage increase you can PROBABLY get 33% OC on a wolfie, increasing it from 3 to 4ghz, but that is a lot of work and cost of extra components.

And if intel sold a 300$ unlocked wolfie then nobody would be buying their 1000+$ cpu lines... considering the 1000$ CPU costs THE EXACT SAME TO MAKE as a cheaper quad core, it makes no financial sense to them.

I understand what you are saying in the bolded part... they make the processors, test them, then bin them accordingly. It doesn't take anymore money to build the extreme part then it does to build a lower clocked non-extreme part. But, how many of the $1,000 CPU's do you think Intel sells? While the profit margin on those parts is out of this world, my guess is they don't sell all that many of them. On the other hand if they had an unlocked 45nm part that was $300, they may sell 100+ of them for every 1 of the current EE chips they sell. My guess is the reason Intel doesn't do this is they don't think the enthuisiast market is not large enough to warrant it, so they keep the low volume/high profit margin $1000 extreme chips.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Odeen

So, for most of the last TEN YEARS, it's been possible to buy either an Intel or an AMD CPU that overclocks by at least 50% using nothing more than a high-end (for the time) air cooler, costing less than $50. No water cooling, no motherboard modifications beyond replacing northbridge thermal goop with Arctic Silver. Call me spoiled, but if it doesn't OC by 50% with relatively little fuss, I'm not really interested.

Oh man....

No 50% is very optimistic.

And not all chips will do 50%. It was only in the introduction of the C2D chips that 50% was almost given. Minus the infamous 300A cellys.

Ive gone though probably 3x the chips you went though and only less then 50% was i able to get a SOLID 50% overclock fully stable with full stress on Prime longer then 8hours +

on a Q6600 @ 2.4ghz 50% = 2.4+1.25 = 3.65 G0 yes, its highly possible on air. On a B3 Impossible unless your on water.

If you wanna go back even further we can look at S939 X2's

Seeing a 3ghz X2 was very difficult until people started to pop optys. Even then they were toping at 2.7-2.8ghz.

 

[OCGuy]

I still dont get the big deal of an unlocked multi right now. How much faster could I get my E8400 than I do with FSB? I keep it at 3.8ghz, not because it is FSB limited, but because it is Vcore limited. (I like to keep it under 1.4v.) Ive booted up at 4.3ghz with this chip no problem, but theres no way I would keep it there. So basically an unlocked multi wouldnt do me any good, because I would still have to add more Vcore than these 45nm can take.

 

[WA261]

Just bump your FSB. I paid $140 for a 6400+ that does 3.6 no sweat on stock cooling. I'm sure it could do more but don't feel like changing cooling.

 

[Nathelion]

The reason they couldn't unlock the lower end processors even if they wanted to is because unscrupulous 3rd party vendors would OC the chips and sell them as high-end versions. This used to happen back in the day, before locked multipliers were introduced. When the CPU later dies or becomes unstable due to the high overclock, AMD/Intel would either see their reputation go down the toilet, or they would have to provide support and replace the high (with an equivalent high-end one) and still have their reputation damaged to some extent.
Obviously, the same is not true for high-end part. There is really no point to buying a high-end chip and then downclocking it to sell it as a cheaper chip.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Nathelion
The reason they couldn't unlock the lower end processors even if they wanted to is because unscrupulous 3rd party vendors would OC the chips and sell them as high-end versions.

What is to stop a company from doing this now? If I go to a local computer store and have them build a computer for me, there's no assurance that they won't use a cheaper CPU, and overclock the FSB to make up for it.

While it does make sense that Intel and AMD would get flack when vendors overclock without telling anyone, Intel and AMD currently get bad rep for crashes that aren't even caused by the CPU.
For quite a few years, I thought AMD made shit processors that couldn't overclock, but it turned out that all of those problems I experienced were caused by the VIA chipsets in all 4 of my computers. Increasing the FSB would also overclock the AGP and PCI, and there was no way to stop it; my Athlon 2200+ computer would crash if the FSB was increased by 5. I posted about it on this forum, on other forums, and I told people in real life. I spread a lot of negativity about AMD, and in the end it was actually VIA that was to blame. Friends and family come to me when they need help with computer problems, so when I go around saying AMD processors can't do <something>, they remember that negativity when they're in Best Buy thinking "I won't get that HP because Shawn said AMD processors are bad."