AMD vs Intel: Overclocking War Heating Up

[Emabulator]

FiringSquad has posted (http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21246) a news article on the staggering speeds being achieved when overclocking the latest offerings from AMD and Intel.

With AMD demo'ing Phenom II parts OC'ing well beyond 6GHz (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB0JodKgZ0A), the OC'ing race between AMD and Intel appears to be on, with Intel supplying xtremesystems.org user fugger a Core i7-975 Extreme Edition processor for testing. When paired with a Gigabyte EX58-Extreme motherboard, fugger managed to hit speeds of nearly 5.3GHz (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=216495) with a Radeon 4870 X2 GPU and 1.5V of juice.

[lockwoodx]

I don't overclock shit.

That's like telling a company it's ok to strip all warranties so long as they preform the best...

Fuck that. I want my stuff to last for years. I refuse to let the industry to make overclocking a standard.

[Zeal]

overclocking is the equivalent of pimping your auto for geeks.

in other words, pointless.

[ShooterMcgavin]

I remember back in the days of yore, overclocking your CPU just a bit could yield VAST improvements in games. Nowadays, just go buy the latest stuff and you're set.

[Whimbrel]

I remember when getting an extra 50 to 75 mhz out of a k6-2 was a huge deal. Or when those guys finally hit 1 gig with their turbo pump water cooled system. It is funny to think about it now, ripping your case apart, covering all the components with waterproofing, then piping a firehose to the cpu and out again for 1 ghz. And even though today's processors are ultra powerful compared to back then, there are still some guys trying to overclock them for those few extra frames in 3d Shooter 6.

[drakkarim]

sadly, i'm with the above. OC's isn't delivering much these days, its there more for the rabid fanboys and an easy way to milk a lot of consumers.

all that for what, so you can finally play a 5 year old game/tech demo with acceptable frame rates?

[Emabulator]

I'm retired from overclocking as well. I'd be perfectly happy with a $229 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471) AMD Phenom II X4 940 at its stock clock speed of 3.0GHz.

It is nice to see the chips have a good amount of headroom; you can be confident they will run stable with stock cooling.

[Franjo]

I've never overclocked. I guess it's just something to do that keeps you busy and constantly tweaking. The extra time and money spent on all the gear needed, pumps, blocks, rads etc you could just buy faster gear.

[Orphiuchus]

Overclocking allowed me to play gta4, which wouldn't run on my e8500 at stock speeds(even with my 4780x2).

With a $20.00 cooler I put it over 4 ghz, the gain was actually very large(30%+).

[Orphiuchus]

Can't I just go one post without a misprint? It's a 4870x2 ffs.

[Gedd]

Pretty cool seeing what the current procs can ramp up to. Hey! Pull the cooling off them while they're runnin that hot and lets see what happens! ;-)

It wasn't so long ago we were racing to 1ghz, now it's 10gHz, soon it will be 100GHz... a THz. Is there a ceiling? Could we one day see a PHz cpu?

[Jukey]

It wasn't so long ago we were racing to 1ghz, now it's 10gHz, soon it will be 100GHz... a THz. Is there a ceiling? Could we one day see a PHz cpu?

There most certainly is a ceiling. It's a matter of conjecture where exactly that ceiling lies. For fun, I did some calculations to come up with a guess (those that know me can assume that I did it wrong, as usual). :p

CPUs and other electronic devices work by moving electrons around. Electrons can move fairly quickly under the right circumstances, but they never move at C (speed of light) or faster. For our purposes however, we will use C as the speed of our electrons (because it's easy, and might apply to optical-based CPUs if we ever make them).

10 GHz is 10 billion cycles per second, meaning that electrons would complete ten circuits per nanosecond (nano=1 billionth).

Our electrons (in theory) can move at 30cm per nanosecond. If they are to complete 10 circuits in this time, the maximum circuit length will be about 3cm.

For reference, an Intel Core 2 processor is about 3cm from edge to edge. It's certainly much more than 3cm to complete a circuit. In order to exceed 10GHz, CPUs will need to get significantly smaller than they are now.

100GHz? Maybe it can happen theoretically. Probably not anytime soon.

Is 1 THz even possible? There is a fundamental limit to how small you can make electronic devices - at some point they would have to be smaller than an electron itself!

1000THz (aka 1PHz)? I think I can confidently predict that this is completely impossible without discovering a new branch of physics.

Also, please note that CPUs are ALREADY not getting any faster. Intel started selling 3GHZ CPUs in November 2002. They hit 3.4GHz in 2004. Intel's new "i7" (Nehalem) CPUs cap out at 3.2GHz. It's certainly possible that we won't see even a 10GHz CPU in our lifetimes.

[Gedd]

There most certainly is a ceiling. It's a matter of conjecture where exactly that ceiling lies. For fun, I did some calculations to come up with a guess (those that know me can assume that I did it wrong, as usual). :p

CPUs and other electronic devices work by moving electrons around. Electrons can move fairly quickly under the right circumstances, but they never move at C (speed of light) or faster. For our purposes however, we will use C as the speed of our electrons (because it's easy, and might apply to optical-based CPUs if we ever make them).

10 GHz is 10 billion cycles per second, meaning that electrons would complete ten circuits per nanosecond (nano=1 billionth).

Our electrons (in theory) can move at 30cm per nanosecond. If they are to complete 10 circuits in this time, the maximum circuit length will be about 3cm.

For reference, an Intel Core 2 processor is about 3cm from edge to edge. It's certainly much more than 3cm to complete a circuit. In order to exceed 10GHz, CPUs will need to get significantly smaller than they are now.

100GHz? Maybe it can happen theoretically. Probably not anytime soon.

Is 1 THz even possible? There is a fundamental limit to how small you can make electronic devices - at some point they would have to be smaller than an electron itself!

1000THz (aka 1PHz)? I think I can confidently predict that this is completely impossible without discovering a new branch of physics.

Also, please note that CPUs are ALREADY not getting any faster. Intel started selling 3GHZ CPUs in November 2002. They hit 3.4GHz in 2004. Intel's new "i7" (Nehalem) CPUs cap out at 3.2GHz. It's certainly possible that we won't see even a 10GHz CPU in our lifetimes.

Nice post, learn something new every day!
Ya know, if there ever is a PHz cpu, I bet someone is gonna try running Doom on it :-)

[ShooterMcgavin]

It's not really about how many GHz a CPU is. It's what it accomplishes per cycle. Which of course is limited by certain things, but people look at the GHz alone and decide based on the number. It's a fallacy.

[Jukey]

It's not really about how many GHz a CPU is. It's what it accomplishes per cycle. Which of course is limited by certain things, but people look at the GHz alone and decide based on the number. It's a fallacy.

Substitute "inches" for GHz and "johnson" for CPU and it still holds true ;)

[Trazzlo the Magnificant]

Substitute "inches" for GHz and "johnson" for CPU and it still holds true ;)I just asked my wife (she works in tech support), and she says given any generic CPUs and comparing their various cyclic activities it often comes down to the GHz being a mere bonus (although a nice one).

But, then again, I gave her computer ram instead of flowers on our second date and saw her eyes light up with joy. I knew I was gonners for her then and never looked back. And all I have is a 10Mhz 386.

[drakkarim]

But, then again, I gave her computer ram instead of flowers on our second date and saw her eyes light up with joy. I knew I was gonners for her then and never looked back. And all I have is a 10Mhz 386.

i'm jealous, of that kind of a wife, not the 386 ;)