Just in time for the Intel Developer Forum, AMD announces that it has set the official Guinness World Record for the “Highest Frequency of a Computer Processor” with an insane frequency of 8.429GHz. The previous record was 8.308GHz, but in the world where every microsecond counts, it’s a clear victory.
AMD should get its award from Guinness tomorrow evening in San Francisco. There is no doubt that this is going to be great publicity for AMD as it will brand this upcoming CPU as an “unlocked” processor that enthusiast can overclock without preset limits.
Still, most people at home won’t be able to even approach such extreme overclocking. To achieve this, AMD has used every trick in the book, including liquid helium cooling. My advice: don’t try this at home, but we’d love to see the Office productivity benchmark numbers .
In anticipation of the release of Bulldozer AMD flew a select few press down to Austin Texas for an editor’s or tech day to witness Bulldozer in action and watch them attempt to break the previous world record for highest frequency CPU.
Typically a tech day is held just before any major release of a product or architecture and serves the purpose of the editors and major websites getting a firsthand look ahead of the release. We are able to sit with developers and product managers to ask questions and in return be asked questions. True to form the tech day just two weeks ago heralded the approach of the new Bulldozer architecture from AMD and while I am still unable to talk about most of what we saw that day we can talk about the potential to overclock this new chip. AMD has described the chip we saw overclocked as “near production level”. I’m not quite sure if that means we were watching a true representation of what retail Bulldozers are capable of as these could have been “cherry picked” chips . . . or I could be reading into the press release too much. Without further ado lets look at what the Bulldozer is capable of from an overclocking standpoint.
We watched as several trays of Bulldozer CPU’s were brought out and tested by two of the best overclockers in the world. While we are still under NDA for much of what we witnessed at the event we have been given the green light to bring you the following video and photo coverage that we took while there.
In anticipation of the release of Bulldozer AMD flew a select few press down to Austin Texas for an editor’s or tech day to witness Bulldozer in action and watch them attempt to break the previous world record for highest frequency CPU.Typically a tech day is held just before any major release of a product or architecture and serves the purpose of the editors and major websites getting a firsthand look ahead of the release. We are able to sit with developers and product managers to ask questions and in return be asked questions. True to form the tech day just two weeks ago heralded the approach of the new Bulldozer architecture from AMD and while I am still unable to talk about most of what we saw that day we can talk about the potential to overclock this new chip. AMD has described the chip we saw overclocked as “near production level”. I’m not quite sure if that means we were watching a true representation of what retail Bulldozers are capable of as these could have been “cherry picked” chips . . . or I could be reading into the press release too much. Without further ado lets look at what the Bulldozer is capable of from an overclocking standpoint.We watched as several trays of Bulldozer CPU’s were brought out and tested by two of the best overclockers in the world. While we are still under NDA for much of what we witnessed at the event we have been given the green light to bring you the following video and photo coverage that we took while there.
AMD Blog post
“There are two stories from AMD today. One is of the years of technology development that have led to a Guinness World Record, an achievement made possible by AMD FX, achieving the highest frequency for a computer processor to date. The second is one of devotion, of individuals who, for better or worse, have become computer hardware racers, test pilots of technology who push limits and often break hardware. And break records.
On August 31, an AMD FX processor achieved a frequency of 8.429GHz, a stunning result for a modern, multi-core processor. The record was achieved with several days of preparation and an amazing and inspired run in front of world renowned technology press in Austin, Texas. This frequency bests the prior record of 8.309GHz, and completely blows away any modern desktop processor. Based on our overclocking tests, the AMD FX CPU is a clock eating monster, temporarily able to withstand extreme conditions to achieve amazing speed. Even with more conservative methods, the AMD FX processors, with multiplier unlocked throughout the range, appear to scale with cold. We achieved clock frequencies well above 5GHz using only air or sub-$100 water cooling solutions.
The result was achieved in a technology grand prix that must be seen to be believed. The refinement of techniques employed by the world’s finest overclockers creates a stunning scene that looks as if we are about to bring the machine to life. It was recorded by a fantastic video team and validated with a most useful tool called CPU-Z, the de facto standard for overclockers looking to capture a moment of stability under extreme conditions, or more practically under conservative tuning. The video has now launched and we hope you will enjoy the spectacle of extreme overclocking and the record-breaking capabilities of our upcoming AMD FX processors.”
source : http://www.techwarelabs.com/amd-bulldozer-cpu-sets-overclocking-world-record-8-429ghz/