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  • damianrobertjones - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    ... with an equally fast gpu.....
  • quiksilvr - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Helium melts at 4K, or just 6 degrees celcius away from absolute zero, where NOTHING MOVES. Does it really have to be THAT cold in order to push the processor?
  • GuinnessKMF - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    You don't understand what records are do you?
  • BSMonitor - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Or a company looking for any good highlights! Maybe this will push my stock price up!
  • cknobman - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Amen to that!!!!!!!

    I bought at $8 and am still waiting to see some ROI
  • jpetro416 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link

    oh boy, how did that go?
  • ajlueke - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    I would just like to point out that the Kelvin scale and degree celcius are unit proportional. If something is a 4 Kelvin, it is four Kelvin away from absolute zero as well as four degrees celcius away from absolute zero, not six.
  • phantom505 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Wow, not only is your science bad, your point is worse.

    By definition 4K is 4K above absolute 0. If we find out that that absolute 0 needs to be moved, it is. It's not a set scale.

    It actually operates quite well with slight cooling. You comment doesn't make any sense. You do know the basic physics of electronics and over clocking right?
  • seapeople - Saturday, September 17, 2011 - link

    So we could wake up tomorrow and find out that water now freezes at 8°C because they moved the Kelvin scale?
  • Camikazi - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    To push i to 8.4GHz yes, considering it was a world record speed I'm guessing any CPU needs liquid helium to get close to that.
  • erple2 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    That's almost true. Helium's melting point (going from solid to liquid) is actually 1.15K, but it's boiling point (going from liquid to gas) is 4.55K (technically 4.549994K).

    BTW, 0K is defined as "absolute zero", and is part of the SI units. The relationship between Celsius and Kelvin is strictly a change in the zero point: 0°C = 273.15K, 0K = -273.15°C. So 4K is really 4 degrees Celsius away from absolute zero. It's also 4 Kelvin away from absolute zero so ...

    Either way, that's a crazy high multiplier...

    One thing that I've been trying to find out is what the previous record was.
  • omg123 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    1. Helium does not melt at 4K, it boils at 4K. At atmospheric pressure helium can only exist as liquid or gas. At absolute zero it is still liquid.
    2. 4K means 4 degrees Kelvin above absolute zero (0K), which is exactly 4 degrees Celsius above absolute zero, not 6.
  • omg123 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Here is the phase diagram of Helium: http://ltl.tkk.fi/research/theory/helium.html

    It can be solid only at pressures of at least 2.5 MPa, which is ~25 atm (1 atm is around 10 kPa).

    Just saying :)
  • UrQuan3 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Remember that there is always a delta between the temperature of the cooler/heatsink and the transistor junction temperature. To understand, the spec temperature quoted is normally in terms of the chip's exterior since it can be measured.

    As a random (made up) example, let's say there's a 60 deg C delta. So if the heatsink is 70C, the junction temperature is130C. If the delta is constant, than at 4C, the junction tepmperature is 64C. This makes more since to me since at extreme temperatures, most materials simply stop conducting. While the delta may vary some with temperature, I'm just trying to give a simple example.
  • Stahn Aileron - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    The Celsius and Kelvin scales use the same interval (1°C = 1°K). So I don't see how 4°K is 6°C away from Absolute Zero... (AT most, it's a 4.15° difference.) I don't even know way you'd use mixed units anyway, now that I think about it...

    Also, helium doesn't melt @ ~4°C. It boils at that temp. If Wikipedia is accurate, helium melts at just under 1°C. (Has anyone really gotten any significant mass of helium frozen anyway...????)

    Anyway, the general rule is, the colder a processor gets, the further you can push it. If you want records set, you do what you must. In this case, AMD said screw liquid nitrogen (the more common cyrogenic coolant with a boiling point of ~77°C) and used helium instead.

    Now my question is, will anyone try something similar with an Intel CPU just to compare absolute overclock frequencies? (We'll ignore actual performance.)
  • izmanq - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    i thought 1K = 1 celcius, so it's should be 4 degrees away from absolute zero :D :D
  • alpha754293 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    a) how can 4 K be 6 degrees Celsius above absolute zero?

    b) It's melting point is only valid at pressures > 2.5 MPa. At atmospheric pressure, it remains a liquid at absolute 0.

    c) The temperature you quoted is the boiling point at 1 atm. (You Celsius number is still wrong, but that's another point.) It also depends on whether you're talking about He-3 or He-4.

    d) They probably used He-4(l) because it's probably cheaper than N2(l).
  • sep332 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    It's not about temperature, it's about heat. The chip itself never gets down to 4K. But the heat energy from the chip moves into the helium and boils it, which keeps the chip at a workable temperature (about +160C I think). So being that cold is really just so they can heat it up again with the CPU.
  • Z Throckmorton - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Anand do you think it's reasonable to infer from these results (i.e. cherry-picked processors) that average consumers on mid-range air will likely be able to take an FX-8150 to ~4.4GHz (while preserving TC)? While not up to SB -K standards, that's still a respectable ~20% OC.
  • GullLars - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    My Phenom II x6 1090T is prime stable @ 4,0GHz on stock volt with NH-D14. If Bulldozer clocks better than Phenom II it sounds good to me :)
    What will really make a difference though is if it gets better single thread performance. It's already set to give great multithread performance pr $.
  • basket687 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    It seems that Bulldozer is really a "speed demon" architecture, just like Netburst. But let's hope that its IPC isn't too low to compete.
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Amen to that. With these sort of clock speeds, my first thought was, "Gee, how deep are they going on the pipeline!?" I'm starting to think this could be AMD's NetBurst if they're not careful.
  • Apocy - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    The liquid helium currently is the most extreme solution for cooling, due to the temperature it needs to be sustained in order to keep it in this form => resulting in extremely low temperatures.
    It was logical next step after liquid nitrogen to get cooling even below the 200 degrees Celsius.

    To answer your question - "Does it really have to be THAT cold in order to push the processor? " - yes, but this cannot be sustained for long. One thing missing here (which I'm very curious about) is the voltage it needed for these 8 Ghz :)
  • IanCutress - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    According to the CPU-Z, 2.01V+. (http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1980971), though that may not be accurate.

    As a competitive overclocker in my spare time, I of course find this veeeery interesting! :)
  • GullLars - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    No it's not missing. They were citing around 2V for ~8GHz. The last few MHz are mostly due to cold and not volt.
    The Phenom II architecture scales better with cold than volt, i wonder if the same is true for Bulldozer.
  • Jeff7181 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    "The most interesting number is likely the first number (4.8GHz) which gives you the upper bound of what to expect from an overclocked Bulldozer at home without any exotic cooling."

    Also, historically speaking, this also tells you where this series/core is going to top out as the manufacturer perfects the manufacturing process. I expect to see some 4.8 GHz SKU's out there by the time this core is replaced.
  • sangyup81 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    it's interesting how you can keep pushing voltage on AMD CPUs as long as it doesn't get too hot
  • INSPIREARUN - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Anand, I think it should be "water" cooling.

    "The first used a sub-$100 closed-loop [waster] cooling solution from Antec (Kühler series)"
  • neotiger - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    AMD is already shipping Bulldozer. But they still won't let the press talk about what happened at the tech day or release any benchmark data.

    The ONLY thing they let anyone talk about is how high they can push the clockspeed using liquid helium. LOL.

    This chip has BUST written all over it.
  • Will Robinson - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    It would seem the Bulldozer cores overclock acceptably.
    Anything over 4.5GHz for a desktop part on air would be impressive.If the IPC and floating point performance is there then AMD will have a decent rival to SB and IB.
  • silverblue - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    "if". Not sure I'm quite that optimistic. :)

    I didn't expect Bulldozer to be a dynamite overclocker on air due to its complexity, so if it can realistically do 4.5GHz, that's not bad. I'm a bit concerned that their higher clocked tests are only showing a single module.

    Any word on the stepping of those Zambezis?
  • fic2 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    Not to mention the lowest overclock is done on water. From what I understand SB can do 4.5GHz pretty easily on air. Not sure whether 4.8GHz oc on water equates to 4.5GHz on air - especially since they don't share an air oc.

    Pretty sure that SB is just as complex as BD.

    Good point that this might be oc of a single module since AMD's turbo can shutdown other modules (or was that cores?) to allow a single one to go higher.
  • wgmann03 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    If you check the CPU-Z, You'll see 6 cores were disabled for the benchmark. This is very misleading.

    So essentially you have AMD 8 core Processor @ 2 cores 2 Threads @ 8.429 GHz.

    You have an i7 980x with 6 Cores @ 6 Cores and 12 threads @ 7.195 GHz

    http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5084/amdlies.jpg
  • Malih - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    The record is for highest overclock, not highest overclock on 8 cores or 6 cores or whatever number of cores. You might feel tricked, but I don't think they're lying there.
  • wgmann03 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    It's all or none. You can't half-ass it. 7.195GHz with 6 CORES and 12 THREADS is a far superior overclock than 8.429GHz with 2 Cores and 2 threads. AMD cheated.

    Just goes to show you this is all a marketing ploy and AMD will try everything possible to skew the data and mislead their consumers. Shame on you AMD.
  • mga318 - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 - link

    I don't know if its intentional or not, but the tone of your written sounds *really* angry...and that just makes you really ridiculous sounding.

    In any case, your right. 7.195GHz with 6 CORES and 12 THREADS is indeed a superior overclock, but its also an overclock that won't get any world record. That's all AMD was going for and I don't think they have claimed otherwise. And if you notice, the previous record was only 1 core, too (which is incidentally, one core less than AMD).

    You're making a mountain out of a mole hill.
  • wgmann03 - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link

    Fair enough, My tone is angry because AMD cheated yet they claim they have a world record cpu. They handicapped their processor for a higher number. That is not how you conduct a scientific experiment. The overall data is skewed to represent their product is superior.

    The difference between the Celeron and the Bulldozer was that the Celeron was used to it's fullest technological capabilities and beyond where as you had to disable to features in the bulldozer to beat a number from a chip developed in 2006.

    Also, you set a precedent for future world record overclocks to not use the full features of CPU to accurately measure performance. Also, the fact that every person that attended the overclock session is under NDA. Meaning the press is redtaped, which is complete BS.

    What is there to hide AMD?
  • silverblue - Wednesday, September 14, 2011 - link

    Somebody replied to this sort of argument on Toms' saying that BD had been clocked to "8.036 GHz on 8 cores". I'm not sure of the validity of this particular statement and I don't have the time to check every video to see if it appears or not... :p
  • seapeople - Saturday, September 17, 2011 - link

    AMD Bulldozer overclocks to 8.429GHz on liguid helium!

    Subsequent CPU testing indicated this was roughly equivalent to an Intel Core i3-380m in single threaded performance.
  • analog1 - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - link

    I wonder?
  • Haravikk - Monday, March 24, 2014 - link

    The 4.8ghz speed is very interesting, especially using a reasonable liquid cooling system. I'd still be interested to find out what a good air-cooling system can achieve, but with 8-cores it seems well worth the extra cash to liquid cool it.
  • frodbonzi - Tuesday, April 8, 2014 - link

    Posting in 3 year old threads? Really?
  • jpetro416 - Thursday, July 21, 2016 - link

    This is sad to watch, the start of the downhill road for AMD

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