Ron Schenone

AMD Has A Secret – But Is It Enough?

Posted by on Jun 7, 2008 | 2 Comments

AMD has a secret. On their 3 core and 4 core cpu’s they have six secret pins that will enable a user to crank up the speed [overclocking] of their cpu’s. Over at Tom’s Hardware they indicate that these new cpu’s when coupled with supporting motherboards will:

Taipei (Taiwan) – AMD has pulled a rabbit out of its hat to increase the performance of its existing Phenom triple-core (8000-series) and quad-core (9000-series) processors. Six “hidden pins” on the processors and chipsets are the secret, which, our sources told us, will enable simple overclocking through the southbridge – and accelerate the current processors on demand.

The name of the game is called “unlocking the multiplier”, which will be played with the SB700 and SB750 southbridge chips. If you are running an upcoming 2.8 GHz Black Edition CPU, a motherboard with the old SB600 model (RD690) will keep the processor cores operating at 2.8 GHz. However, if you have a motherboard with the SB700 chipset, you will receive a free upgrade to 3.0 GHz. And if you get a motherboard with a SB750 chip, your processor will run at 3.2 GHz, which matches the clock speed of the Athlon X2 6400+ – the highest clocked processor AMD ever offerred.

But the question is will this be enough to get AMD back in the ball game against the likes of Intel? It seems that AMD is once again struggling to maintain it’s market share.

What do you think?

Comments welcome.

Source.

  • http://www.build-your-own-computer.net Dave

    I don’t know that it will be enough to get them back in the game. First off, why make the pins a secret? And why only 3 Ghz on the SB700 but 3.2 on the SB750? Second, Intel will simply lower prices on current CPU’s, and drop a new line of CPU on top of this and pretty much make the whole thing a wash. I hope it works out for AMD, we need them to stick around and do well – someone has to keep Intel in check…

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Dave,
    ‘someone has to keep Intel in check…’

    Exactly. :-)