Hitting Them Where It Hertz...

Author : Martyn Date : 5th Jan '02

As most of you have already heard, experienced or guessed; XP CPU's are now multiplier locked. The once favorable stance AMD took toward overclocking seems to have been lost in the transition to the desktop Palomino core. XP's have the infamous 'laser trenches' as their main weapon against multiplier manipulation. The war metaphor is deliberate; that's what it can feel like sometimes when attempting to unlock one of these chips. I tried a countless number of times before my labour bore any reward. In short I used a Tipp-exx correction pen and conductive paint to unlock this chip. First the bridges are masked up and Tipp-exx fluid applied to fill in the gaps (mainly as it dries a lot quicker than some glues) then I painted very thin lines over the L1 bridges using rear window defogger paint, and then I did it again and again and again and.... you get the picture. You have to be accurate and it took me a while but it was worth it. I felt it would be unfair to conduct another XP review and not include some overclocking analysis. If you need more information on unlocking these chips then check out overclockers.com as they have a few decent posts on this subject now.

With my newly freed CPU I went about finding the top speed possible. With a locked multiplier I was only able to achieve a FSB of 145 making the total frequency 1745MHz. I knew this CPU had a bit more in it and lowered the multiplier down. The most stable overclock I was able to find (while utilizing the highest possible fsb) 160 x 11 making for an overall MHz value of 1760. Somewhat disappointing I would suggest but consider that this was totally air-cooled and I guess a free 160MHz is still a decent bonus. These chips can reach 2GHz, a glance around various forums will tell you as much, the problem is a lot of voltage and cooling is needed for such a high overclock. So unless you have access to a Vapochill unit or suchlike don't expect to take this one too high. The bonus for overclocking fans is early reports on the 2000+ steppings are that they are drastically different to the older 1700 and 1800+ versions, we can hope therefore, that the best overclocks from these CPU's are still to come.

Part Six: Conclusions

As I stated at the start, an extra 60 or so MHz couldn't hurt could it? Indeed we saw standard increases across the benchmarks here. The XP chips have garnered quite a formidable reputation in their short existence and with good reason. They offer superb value for money and the performance is quite groundbreaking at times.

Therefore; if you are shopping for a new CPU around now this chip is the one to place high up on your list. With the 2000+ very close indeed some more 'extreme' users may wish to wait and see what potential for overclocking these chips have and indeed upon their introduction we can expect this version fall in price by a small amount. Overall it's the same old story as the AMD success machine rolls forward. Excellent prices and excellent performance; it all adds up to another winner for AMD and their XP CPU.

Part Seven: Final Scores

Pros: -

1. Standard increases over the 1800+
2. Excellent price to performance ratio form AMD
3. Ultimate compatibility through the huge range of motherboards available for this CPU.

Cons: -

1. That multiplier may cause you quite a lot of hassle if overclocking is a requirement.
2. More expensive than it's Athlon counterpart.
3. It's only 60MHz more right?

(AMD Athlon XP 1900+)

As usual, questions comments etc welcomed; drop in our forums or mail me - Martyn

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