AMD Athlon

Overclocking: How it's done

The question most of you are probably asking now (in addition to "how well does it perform?") is, can it be overclocked?

The answer is yes. AMD, from the start, has not had any intention of providing a multiplier lock on their processors, however they are very concerned with remarking. The K6 processor was one of the easiest chips to remark, and later generations of the K6 family didn't make it much more difficult for remarkers to overclock and sell the processors at higher prices. The Athlon changes all that.

If you take a look at the Athlon's processor card, you'll notice that in the upper right hand corner there is a connector. That connector is the key to overclocking the Athlon. A controller module featuring dip-switches is plugged directly onto the connector and using that you can set the clock multiplier of the Athlon processor.

Once the clock multiplier is reprogrammed, you can remove the controller and go about using your chip normally. This unfortunately means that you have to remove the Athlon CPU from its casing, which will void all warrantees (but so does overclocking, so it's not that big of a loss). You'll just want to make sure that you don't damage the processor while removing the external casing.

Unfortunately the controller chips are very difficult to come by, a few manufacturers have them in their possession and they're present in AMD's labs as well as a few other places, but generally speaking, they're not easy to come by. The data sheets on that particular connector have yet to be released, but don't be surprised if they get leaked to certain Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers and you begin seeing overclocking controllers appear in the market, sort of like Socket-370 to Slot-1 Sloket adapters that allow for dual processor operation.

So how far can these things be pushed? Kryotech was the first to show off an overclocked Athlon with their Super-G system at 1000MHz. Unfortunately the 1000MHz systems won't be out until later this year, the systems that will first be available will be the Cool Athlon 800s running at, you guessed it, 800MHz. The Cool Athlon 800s will make use of the 650MHz Athlon processor, thermally accelerated (aka overclocked) to 800MHz. But how far can you get without the extreme Kryotech cooling?

Although we can't quote you definite clock speeds as each chip will most likely overclock to a different extent, 700MHz out of a 650MHz chip isn't too far fetched of a goal, and obtaining a 750MHz overclock is more realistic than you'd think… ;)