Finished said:
Wow! That's a nice setup! I was really into overclocking around the time the Pentium chip came out. Ha! ha! I was eventually able to get a single core P3 to run at over 4GHZ on forced air with a bus speed of around 300MHZ........ I can't remember exactly. Ha! ha! It was a long time ago. It was really fast though. But it was only stable and usable around 3.9GHZ or so. I don't even remember the exact chip. But, it was a special line of the top 5% of the most robust chips. I was testing dual core chips at the time and my single chip setup blew them all away on every test except for the ones the dual core chip manufacturers concocted to show their dual chips were so much faster then the single core chips. Sure, I believed those magic closed code source tests. Ha! ha! I was doing video editing. At the time I had over 20TB of harddrives, which was an enormous amount.
I kept that setup for quite a few years. It was solid and fast. Then I down sized. I was still able to sell the CPU for over $300 too. Computers are fast enough now that overclocking really isn't necessary. But it was fun running water coolers and various devices to get chips to run faster. I really thought single core chips were going to stick around because mine, well, screamed. I figured a computer would have six or eight single core chips running stable at 8 - 10ghz with bus speeds of 1GHZ or so. But, that's too expensive.
Clearly you know how to overclock -- manipulating frequencies, multipliers, voltages, stepping . . . all has to march in cadence.
I too no longer overclock -- there simply is no need at the speeds running naturally; I'll alter turbo ratios, but that's it. I still watercool due chip longevity: 480 mm full copper radiator positioned north with push-pull high static pressure fans. They usually stay extremely quiet, if they spin at all, as via BIOS I have it set to determine a fan curve based on a conservative core temp measurement.
I also manipulate, at a microcode level, when the processor uses a single core as opposed to the eight available. As you said and its true -- a single core running at high clock speed (for many applications, is simply faster.)
For other applications, and being watercooled, I will have all cores run at the highest turbo rate which essentially (though not through data instruction) turns the processor into a hybrid single-core.
It can be fun . . . but the novelty wares off once you have a macro BIOS to switch to what you've created for certain tasks.
Sounds as if your P3 silicon was exclusively binned -- as back then they would approach Tmax quickly.
Having tons of physical storage in this era (to each their own) is no longer necessary due to cloud storage and speeds.
But yea, always nice to meet another enthusiast.
Take care,
Chris.
Finished said:
Wow! That's a nice setup! I was really into overclocking around the time the Pentium chip came out. Ha! ha! I was eventually able to get a single core P3 to run at over 4GHZ on forced air with a bus speed of around 300MHZ........ I can't remember exactly. Ha! ha! It was a long time ago. It was really fast though. But it was only stable and usable around 3.9GHZ or so. I don't even remember the exact chip. But, it was a special line of the top 5% of the most robust chips. I was testing dual core chips at the time and my single chip setup blew them all away on every test except for the ones the dual core chip manufacturers concocted to show their dual chips were so much faster then the single core chips. Sure, I believed those magic closed code source tests. Ha! ha! I was doing video editing. At the time I had over 20TB of harddrives, which was an enormous amount.
I kept that setup for quite a few years. It was solid and fast. Then I down sized. I was still able to sell the CPU for over $300 too. Computers are fast enough now that overclocking really isn't necessary. But it was fun running water coolers and various devices to get chips to run faster. I really thought single core chips were going to stick around because mine, well, screamed. I figured a computer would have six or eight single core chips running stable at 8 - 10ghz with bus speeds of 1GHZ or so. But, that's too expensive.
. . . I noted you said your chip was within the top 5% . . . I would cautiously presume 1-2%; for a Pentium to stabilize at those speeds: you won the silicon lottery.
Chris.
