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Overclocking update
As we already talked about reaching 682MHz
with the standard GlobalWin heatsink, we knew that it wasn't good enough for
a 550E Coppermine, we decided to reach for something more serious.
3DFXcool
provided us with an ALPHA heatsink and some MPU
3.7 thermal grease. So we decided to re-try our tests. Unfortunately we
didn't get the chance to re-do them on our previous setup, so we used the
Asus P3B-F motherboard running with 128Mb PC133 Mushkin Module provided by
Mushkin. Our first target was of course
133MHz FSB. Our first try was a success. The system booted without a single
problem. We left it on for the night running 3 instant MP3 playbacks in the
background. In the morning everything was stable, so it turned out that 733MHz
was not a big problem to reach. Our second target was the 140MHz FSB. Our
first try was again a success, the system booted without any problems. We
again left it with three MP3 playbacks for the night. In the morning everything
was again stable. I have to say that 770MHz from a 550MHz CPU is indeed impressive.
We tried the 150MHz FSB just after that, unfortunately none of our ram modules
could take it.
The ALPHA is indeed a very interesting and noisy setup for cooling the FC-PGA
Coppermine CPU. We then decided to re-try our tests again but this time with
a retail FC-PGA Heatsink. The results weren’t impressive. How does 46c - 48c
sounds like running at 733MHz 1.65v? Not good compared to the ALPHA, which
ran at 39C.
We then got an idea on improving that, we removed the thermal pad from the
retail heatsink and replaced it with the thermal grease (MPU 3.7) provided
by 3DFXcool. Amazingly the temperature went down. Running 733MHz 1.65v at
41C. This can be another cooling solution, and maybe an even more interesting
one than the ALPHA. First of all, the ALPHA heatsink comes with a 60mm fan
that is very noisy compared to the very quiet 30mm fan that comes with the
retail boxed heatsink. And another reason is that the alpha generally covers
at least 1 ram slot of your motherboard because of its gigantic size. So why
spend 30$ for a new heatsink when you can spend 3$ for thermal grease
and use the original heat sink? And at the same time save the headaches of
the noise the alpha makes.
Conclusion
Intel has done a great job on the Coppermine; it’s basically a KATMAI with
a one-chip solution using the new .18 micron process. Comparing the two available
retail FC-PGA formats to the KATMAI core running at the same speeds the prices
are slightly lower. I don’t see why someone would choose the KATMAI in any
way.
The FC-PGA versions are called "low budget" production. This means
nothing more than, to produce them, the cost is smaller than the cartridged
versions. While many people will think that this may be a performance hit,
it’s not. FC-PGA versions are probably the best product that money can buy
today. You don’t have to pay several hundreds to achieve the performance of
the 700MHz Coppermine. You can simply overclock the 550e (133FSB) and it will
practically outperform the available Coppermine 700 without any doubts.
Athlon versus FC-PGA Coppermine? Athlons are another very powerful CPU. But
they will cost much more initially. First of all you will have to buy a new
motherboard (Slot A) to run it. That’s an expensive upgrade. Slot A motherboards
are more expensive than a normal Slot1 boards and there are none currently
available that could satisfy a power-user. Many other factors come to mind
here too. Don’t forget the Athlon’s need of very high quality memory and power
supplies and suddenly you may find yourself purchasing several components
to use that new Athlon. As of this moment each CPU has a quality lacking somewhere.
The FC-PGA’s main weakness will be solved when more motherboards offering
increased overclocking capabilities begin to enter the market. This is already
starting to change and hopefully we could also see something better from the
folks at AMD soon. Special thanks:
Azzo computers for the coppermine supply,
3DFXcool for the Alpha heatsink, Mushkin
for the PC133 memory supply and our very own Victor
Oshiro.
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