New AthlonXP's coming with Heatspreaders...

[Wombat]

Sorry to beat a dead horse, but if I hear "OC will shorten your CPU life" one more time, I will go postal.

Sorry, but it's true. The extra voltage that usually accompanies overclocking does break things down faster. I've seen the scans of the damage, and I've also seen parts degrade over time (we have very fine control over operating regions here at work).

[KvHagedorn]

From AMD's website detailing their test and assembly locations:

AMD Penang
Penang is the site of AMD?s largest equivalent volume assembly and test plant. Founded in 1972, it occupies 415,332 square feet in four buildings located about ten miles from the city?s center. The operations are:

* Assembly of advanced logic and memory products in ceramic and plastic packages using wire bond and C4 flip chip process.
* Testing, marking and packing of advanced devices along with warehouse operations that allow direct shipment of products to customers worldwide.
* Process and package development services.
* Product and design engineering services.
* Worldwide assembly sub-contractor operations management.

This site also houses the Fifth Device Design Center for AMD?s Memory Group. The plant supports all of AMD?s product lines. AMD Penang became ISO 9002 certified in 1992, QS-9000 certified in February 2000 and ISO 14001 certified in November 2000, and was the winner of the Malaysian Quality Management Excellence Award in 1999.

And yes, the "Athlon" name was copyrighted in 1999, so every Athlon chip says ©1999 on it. What's so strange about that?

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by Wombat
Sorry, but it's true. The extra voltage that usually accompanies overclocking does break things down faster. I've seen the scans of the damage, and I've also seen parts degrade over time (we have very fine control over operating regions here at work).

I agree that this is very true. With the ever finer traces on smaller processes, there is also much less room for error now. Some highly clocked P4s can NOT tolerate voltage increases, or they will simply die.

When I read about the effects of higher voltage, I toned my XP1800+ down to stock voltage again. With a nice 2 day "burn in" at 1.85v though, the processor now runs cooler and faster at stock voltage. It runs as a 2000+ at stock voltage very stably, so that's overclocked enough for me. In fact, if it runs faster at stock voltage, can you truly say it is overclocked? Underbinned is more like it.

[Wombat]

And yes, the "Athlon" name was copyrighted in 1999, so every Athlon chip says ©1999 on it. What's so strange about that?

Because all you really have to do to update the copyright is to update the year. Take publications for instance, I don't believe that Time still has a 50-year old copyright date listed.

[DGhost]

one of the improvements the Palomino core brought to the table was when dealing with chipped cores. with the t-birds just about any chip on the die could potentially kill it. supposedly, the palomino core and t-bred cores both have been designed with this in mind, and are a bit more "chip resistant".

in addition AMD has been working more with HSF manufacturers and beating them on their head about clip designs and downforce being applied, etc.

this info came from the regional AMD rep, btw... so take it for what its worth...

stepping codes change. could be a barton core mechanical sample. in addition AMD has chip assembly facilities in Malaysia. current T-Breds and i believe Palominos came from there.

about the end of life part of it, intel released 2 steppings of the P3 1ghz in the FCPGA2 style heat spreader. it wouldn't suprise me if AMD did the same as they are obviously working on it for the Hammer stuff, and have done it before on both the K5/K6 family and the 762 north bridge.

[Marshmallowman]

check this about the 2600+ athlon review

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35586

still no heatspreader, that maybe for the 2800/166FSB part to come?

[Dogbert]

Read on the chip

[Novdid]