I think this is a great article, and I just want to add my experiences to it:

I run an Athlon XP 2200+ on a Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Ultra Mainboard with 512 MB of PC2700 DDR. My Graphics card is a Radeon 8500 DV 64 MB of ram, with an Enermax PSU. My motherboard came with an overclocking Utility called EasyTune4, and so far, I have succesfully run it at 1947 MHz. This could be an individual experience, or due to the utility I used. Check it out if you have the Gigabyte Mainboard, it comes as part of the bundled software. Also, my processor usually reads at about 45 to 48 degrees when I am running a heavy load, all the way down to 39 when I am at idle. Does anyone have similar experiences? Happy overclocking!

Excellent article! Well written and imformative. You've confirmed my suspicions that (sigh) Intel has indeed recaptured the "RAW PERFORMANCE" lead. Can't wait to hear what you have to say when the Hammer finally arrives. TIll then, Thank you.

Come to think of it, has anyone thought of unlocking the XP2200+ processor and bringing the bus speed up to 166 Mhz with the PCI right dividers but setting the multiplers to bring the CPU clock speed to aroun d1.8 Ghz like the original? that might give a good indication of what the XP2200 could do with a proper FSB speed boost

i have nothing to say...
just tired of seeing that DUKE was the last to post.

- danny e.
---------------
italy vs. korea
&
japan vs. turkey

lets rock.

Liam... I have a new Yum-Cha on my PIV... what a coincidence!

:)

Have a good one.

This thread is officially in post-mortem.

Shaker, No need to apologise, logical argument is good. Irrational flames on the other hand...

The problem I see here is we may be looking at things from two different viewpoints. I base my viewpoint on using quality coolers attached correctly. Every cooler I own (3) is a copper/aluminium hybrid where the copper (which attaches to the CPU slug) is close to mirror flat. For my use - a heat spreader would get in the way.

Yum-cha coolers chosen for cost rather than performance may benefit for the reasons you say. I initially used a GlobalWin FOP32/1 and the finish on the base of that was less than perfect - fairly heavy machine markings etc.

When I ground the base flat (up to using 1200 grit), the performance was noticeably better. Coolers with less than flat bases may benefit from a heatspreader.

It is interesting to note that AMD's cooling guidelines a fairly strict from June 10 onwards for their high-end parts, more in line with the coolers I tend to use.

As for water cooling v air-cooling, Water is able to extract more heat per unit area, maintain a more stable (and narrower) range of operating temperatures which enables engine manufacturers tighten (significantly) tolerances (designed in to accommodate thermal expansion).

all XP2200+ reviews are at http://www.amdboard.com/athlonxp2200special.html

can't give you better address for now ;)

Yeah, I remember a K6 200 that I had, quite the little furnace...

Anand was talking out his Intel Contract in that quote. AMD employed heatspreadders across the entire K6/K6-x series.

I don't know what the K6/K6-x heatspreadder was made out of, but I do know that several people who removed them were able to get higher overclocks afterwards.

-ludi

Originally Posted by the_xolf
As someone who unintentionally joined the [H]ard|OCP school of keychain creation with a 1.2GHz Thunderbird chip, I\'m all for the integrated heat spreader.

Fragile chips which require heatsinks to be clamped to them with half a ton of force aren\'t fun when you find out the hard way you got the heatsink at a slightr angle when you were clamping it on ...

Liam C:

Sorry to extend this, but just one more post on the subject...

(BTW, I have no credentials other than "seat of the pants" engineering experience)

Theoretically, you are correct, every interface introduces a bottleneck, *however*, the more consistent the *first* interface (i.e., heat spreader to core) the more predictable the heat transfer. Remember, the second interface has to transfer less heat per unit area, so intimate contact isn't as critical (such as meticulously applied ultra-thin coatings of Arctic Silver) as the first interface. As a matter of fact, a sloppy application of silicone will probably do 99% of the heat transfer as a thin coating of a more expensive compound. What does this do? It provides the chip manufacturer with predictable thermal characteristics so that they (Intel, AMD) can effectively 'overclock' their own processors (albeit not the 'maximum overclock'), getting more yield from their process. Intel has taken the 'bull by the balls' here, and AMD is to follow.

From AnandTech:
"The first thing we noticed about the CPUs is that they look a lot like the Socket-478 Pentium 4 processors. In fact, AMD did borrow quite a bit from Intel in designing the packaging of the CPUs as both the ClawHammer and SledgeHammer parts feature integrated heat spreaders (IHS), a technology which Intel has been using for almost two years now. This means that there will no longer be any horror stories of crushed cores from poorly installed heatsinks or badly manufactured heatsink clips.

The next thing you'll notice, which is difficult to gauge using these words, is that the CPUs are very heavy. They are easily the heaviest socketed CPUs I've ever held, with the weight being due to the IHS; it's simply interesting that they are heavier than their counterparts from Intel."

Motorcycle engines are a good analogy. Although air cooling the engine is most direct way to acheive cooling, manufacturers are now using water cooling, despite it's extra weight (and thermal interface). Why? More consistent performance under varying conditions, allowing them to push the (albeit slightly lower) horsepower limits with predictable results.

It could be that the future of overclocking will be to attempt to defeat the manufacturer's solutions by prying off heat spreaders and using specially modified heat sinks (maybe some will be aluminum with a 'special' copper plate bonded to the bottom) well, you get it...

IMHO

respectfully,

shaker

Thanks Forge. It's always good to get reliable info.

LiamC - I think you'll find that the AG is parroting a bit of wisdom from back when HSFs were aluminum and core covers were copper. Back then, a nice big flat copper plate between CPU and HSF actually did help a little, as the copper 'wicked' heat away from the core, more towards he outsides of the HSF. I did research on this subject at one point, and found I was getting ~50C at the center of the HSF, 35C at the edges. I put a spare copper plate from my H2O rig in between, and get 40-45C in a much more uniform dispersal across the heatsink. In my case core temperature dropped only a minute amount, though, probably because the increased cooling ability of the HSF was offset by the extra thermal junction.

In short, you're quite right, but assuming the AG was listening to RMBS too long isn't necessarily true.

Hey #120, something smells fishy alright, and its coming from one post lower than this one.

You people are gay and I hope you eat a bag of fish.

You don't come to the city.

The city comes to you.

Shaker (#106)

A heat spreader won't give you better thermal dissipation, it will give you worse.

Why? Whenever you have a heat path that is broken (ie by going from one material to another) you reduce the total amount of heat that can flow from one side of the junction to the other. Making the interface between the two materials as mechanically flat as possible helps - as does liquid or semi-liquid compounds that can "fill the gaps" - thermal compound.

No matter what you do however, such an interface will not transfer heat as efficiently as a single solid material.

With a "heat spreader" you are introducing two junctions. One between the core and the "heat trap" (IMHO) and the other between the heat trap and the cooler. Want the best possible heat transfer for your CPU core? Don't put anything between it (CPU) and the cooler!

If the "heat spreader" "works" because it has a larger surface area, don't you think that the cooler would be better still, as it has an even larger surface?

Sorry to rant at you but this "heat spreader" garbage has to stop. Sure it will protect the core, but it won't transfer heat better.

I am fairly sure that Rambus started this nonsense. Rambus chips need to dissipate the heat because they run so hot, so they put a metal plate on the chips. A passive heatsink would have been far better but a cheap metal plate is much more cost effective. And before anyone starts, CPU cores are dissipate far more heat than Rambus chips do, so they need more effective cooling techniques.

Wesley96, the blue cores were from the Dresden die polisher(hence, were also copper). Of course they did better :)

Hmm, I followed the link (from AMDZone... and I think Chris Tom's going hyperbole again... how typical.. :) seems like he never wants to concede) to AMD's Model 8(Thoroughbred) AXP datasheet. Comparing to Model 6(Palomino)... on 1700+, which is what I have...

Model 6 Model 8
V: 1.75 1.50
I_max: 36.6 32.9

Now assuming that I_max stays constant(reducing voltage reduces heat output proportionally, so I think this is right), and that the heatsink can pull out the heat at a relatively similar rate, this means if I can run T-bred @ 1.45V like I have my Pally right now, it'd still have 10% less heat, and the temperature delta would be reduced accordingly... which would equal about 2.5C. Nice. Not very much, but still nice. BUT, if that thing can do something like 1.20V, I'm on a roll. :)

C'mon, dudes, please test those T-breds to find out the minimum stable operating voltage.

Heh, I think AMD's moving to green colour now.. needs to clear those early brown batches first, though. Maybe the overclockability lies in the colour... [i]agai/i]. :) Remember the old green-and-blue core fun? Seems like green is taking a revenge..

#103: That was a press photo. Every sight that actually posted an original photo or discussed the packaging, indicated "brown". Also the "real" pictures all show stepping info, etc. on the label, the press photo doesn't.

#105: At least Ryan's response is credible, but it is a little difficult to understand why he didn't publish any data at all for that clockspeed. Given the March=>June delay and dozens of rumors about AMD's 0.13µ transition, one would expect that he would try to put them to rest by backing up his findings.

Oh well...

-ludi

#113, if "everyone" knows that, then what of the other 5.8B organisms who think of themselves as people? It's not nice to exclude their views, you know.

does it really matter? everyone knows AMD is the pewp..

AG110, you mean 730Mhz surely :)

1800Mhz
verses
2530Mhz

From Page 51 of the the Intel PIV Datasheet:
Table 29.Processor Material Properties
Component Material
Integrated Heat Spreader Nickel over copper
Substrate Fiber-reinforced resin
Substrate pins Gold over nickel

The Heat spreader also helps distribute the mechanical load of the heat sink retention mechanism evenly.

you know the stupid PR i almost forgot how good the 2200+ scores are once you remember AMD is running 600mhz below the intel chips.

Ahh, nevermind. I didn't know they were copper/nickel. Are you sure it's not just aluminum?

Why would you want an aluminum heat spreader in the way of your copper heatsink? That obviously would not improve heat transfer efficiency.

Damage, T-R, your chip is a week 14 chip. Maybe that's why it ain't overclocking like mad... The only way we can tell is when someone get's a retail T-bred.

Not to belabor the point, but an integrated heat spreader (copper inside, nickel plate outside to prevent oxidation) seems like a good idea for a small area die, as it gets the heat "out" from the center quickly. I'm running a PIV 1.6 @ 1.8 (BIOS and power supply limitations are keeping me there, for now) and it runs six degrees C over the case temp with an "average" aluminum heat sink and Radio Shack thermal goo. (The "1.5U" Utron case helps, too as a 60mm fan can evacuate the case volume pretty quickly, but that's a whole 'nother story).

As to the 166 FSB: Is every MB/chipset out there able to run 166 stably? That may be the reason that AMD won't spend the resources on making it "official".

shaker

Just a nother worthy point

[q] Hey guys! Thanks for the comments -- good and bad.

I was as surprised as the rest of you on the overclocking results of a lot of the other websites out there. I talked with a couple, and some have stated that their processors came to them already unlocked, where the 2200+ I received was not. This may point to a different stepping or some other factor that is causing the better overclocking performance I saw.

But, saying that I made the numbers up is kind of ridiculous. Because I am in San Francisco right now, I don't have pictures or access to the hardware to give you any more information. The FSB that it was running at was 166 MHz and the multiplier was 13x. That gives me 2160 MHz, a 360 MHz overclock (that I mistakenly typed as 316 MHz in the article).

[/q]

Quoting Ryan's (the guy who made the overclock) reply on their forums... I'd say that there is hope and that his CPU might have been a stepping up from the rest and Chris Tom is just pissed that he didn't receive the same overclockable CPU :)

read the thread it's fun

http://www.amdmb.com/vb/showthread.php?s=2ce2f7c62a38d264696a0a19b5...