Homebuilt water cooler for CPU

[cjolley]

God I love this forum!
Siting Arrhenius no less.

What we have here is a false dichotomy.
Brian is absolutely right about the efficiency of overclocking.
On the other hand, most hobbies are inefficient if examined from the outside.

As a practical example though, my P3-650 does 933mz (142fsb) @stock volts w/stock cooling and does not improve one bit if the cooling is increased, or the voltage raised, or both.

So, if you really are overclocking just to make your computer faster, see what it can do on it's own.
If you want to experiment with exotic stuff, go for it, but be sure to enjoy the process and not depend on the outcome.
chuck


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ABit BE6-2 V2, P3-650@923, 128mb@142cas2, 90gig (2x45) IBM 75GXP striped raid array, SB Live Value@3.0, Pioneer 104s DVD, Mitsumi CDRW@2x2x8, Acatel 1000 ADSL@1.5mb/sec, Linksys EtherFast NIC, LG 995e, USB mouse,Matrox G400 MAX!!!!

[az]

OK, to get back to the off-topic topic of overclocking and justifying it

Brian, you're right, one should normally not run equipment out of spec, BUT there's more to the speed rating of (especially AMD) processors than validation for a certain speed:

I KNOW that AMD labels processors at lower speeds than they validate for (not all CPUs, but almost all of the lower speed grades), because they can only sell so much fast CPUs and can't afford to store them all and the demand for slower processors is higher than the number of processors that don't validate for higher speeds. I believe intel does the same thing.

So, overclocking a Duron 600 to 750 will most likely not be running it out of spec but rather running it out of "marketing spec".

AZ

[cjolley]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by az:
...back to the off-topic topic of...</font>

Off topic? In MURC? I don't believe it.
chuck

[Greebe]

actually AZ you're partly correct and partly wrong. While there is a difference between x speed cpu and another, they normally mark the lower speed ones the way they do simply because it doesn't meet the requiremnts of the spec. Now if marketing needs X amount of X speed chips to fill their quota, then they trickle the ones that don't make the grade down into the next appropriate speed class and so on. Sometimes this means getting a cpu that you can run way over said spec (marketing spec if you will), but that's not to say it's running within spec. I can push my SlotA Athlon 500 to 900, but it won't run all things and must be ultra cooled to even manage that. Curently it's happy @800 with modest aircooling, tho I can push it to 850 without much more difficulty... tho it's much louder to do that(120mm 115cfm fan @ 50dBA).

BTW all manufactures do this the same way.

[az]

Yeah Greebe, forgot to mention that

Though there are virtually no lower speed durons that wouldn't validate for at least 50 MHz more - If you overclock carefully the risk of damaging your system is quite low, AFAIK, and you can easily see if your system runs stable enough by stress-testing it. It's kind of a lottery

BTW, I don't overclock (ok, I overclocked my current system from 166 MHz @ FSB66 to 183 MHz @ FSB75 ), and I'd only do it to lengthen the life span of a system that's becoming too slow, AND I'd never invest money just to run my system a little more out of spec - I'd rather buy me a faster processor then

AZ

[Greebe]

I OC everything, but only to the degree that it doesn't cause any instabilities and have been doing so for 17 years now (or is that 18... dang I'm loosing track)

[az]

I think OCing is fine when it's done as a hobby, or to gain speeds you need that are otherwise not attainable (no faster product out yet), if you can risk losing some hundred $, or to lengthen the life span of existing equipment when you plan to buy a new one and have the money ready, just in case the OC blows your system away. But I really can't understand people who OC just to get 99 instead of 98 FPS out of Quake 3

AZ

[Greebe]

I'll agree with that. In this case my Athlon500 has been running at 850 since November '99. At that time there wasn't any cpu available that could do anthing higher than 700!

BTW since you may not already know, I was the one that invented the first commercial GFD for Athlons.

[cjolley]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Greebe:
BTW since you may not already know, I was the one that invented the first commercial GFD for Athlons. </font>

I only use Intel stuff & I remember.
That was a great job and a real highlight in the history of MURC.
chuck

[Greebe]

I have AMD, Cyrix and Intel inside!

[az]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is a GFD?

AZ

[SCompRacer]

GFD = "Golden Finger Device." Allowed the user to easily change the multiplier {and voltage?} of locked AMD slot 1 CPU's without doing tedious mods to the CPU itself.

Do I remember it right, Greebe?

[az]

Ah OK, thanks

I am familiar with the term "Golden Finger Device", although I do not know how it works. I just couldn't do anything with the abbreviation

Now I understand Greebe's law a little better

AZ

[SCompRacer]

Greebe's the man!

He hooked me up with a place to get caps (capacitors) which I couldn't find locally to replace some blown ones in a like new Supermicro dual CPU motherboard I got for free. Which now resides at my brothers house working as a server cause I owed him a favor....

[CHHAS]

I still remember the title of that thread:
'More caps than you can shake an SCompRacer at'
That really cracked me up

[This message has been edited by CHHAS (edited 13 June 2001).]