Intel Fights Overclocking?

<A HREF="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=8518" target="_new">the inquirer posted a story</A> claiming that Intel was granted a US patent for an anti-overclocking circuit/method.

The patent, no 6,535,988, is real. It's registered at the US Patent office. Check for yourself.

<A HREF="http://www.uspto.gov/" target="_new">http://www.uspto.gov/</A>

Do you think Intel plans to put an end to overclocking?



<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 03/27/03 02:23 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

I don't know about that.

Athlon looks like it's reaching the end of its service life and Clawhammer is nowhere close being available.

I doubt Intel will implement the anti-overclocking stuff on the P4.

Since P4 will definitely scale to 5 Ghz (and possibly beyond) then P4 might become the overclocking chip of choice. This is especially true since there won't be any competition.


<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

Thanks for the link.

I had already glanced over the article earlier today.

Last night, I was reading the patent particulars and noticed the filing date was in 1999. I believe the notes indicate that initial research was done as early as 1997.

Wasn't it this time frame, 1997-1999, when Intel removed access to the multipliers from their processors? That was clearly a move toward anti-overclocking.

Now that Intel has the patent does this mean AMD would have to obtain a license if they wanted to implement anti-overclocking circuitry? (Don't answer. That was a joke).



<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>

I don't know.

All I do know is AMD has been a thorn in Intel's side ever since the 8086 + 8087 days.

IIRC, Intel contracted AMD to supplement Intel's chip production in order to meet demand. AMD took advantage of the contract and continued to clone Intel chips for years. They figured as long as Intel was still using x87 FP code AMD still had a right to clone the chips, even the revised ones, 80286, 80386, and i486.

Somewhere Intel got smart and started patenting technologies which AMD could not clone.

Lawsuits went on for years. I don't know how they ended (if they ended).

Well, that's the way I think things went.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 03/27/03 11:01 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

I wonder how often that sort of cheating goes on today.

AMD also added anti-overclocking by locking the multipliers but this only stopped the casual, would-be, overclocker. People who weren't afraid to take out their CPU and paint or pencil the bridges could easily (relatively) overclock. This mostly would only be enthusiastists but I suppose unscrupulous VARs could still overclock.

I wonder what percentage of AMD powered PCs are overclocked today? For that matter what percentage of the do-it-yourself PCs are overclocked? It would be interesting to know the answers.

<b>99% is great, unless you are talking about system stability</b>