AMD's Bulldozer 8.4GHz+ OC Achievement: Cooled to Near-Absolute Zero
AMD's Bulldozer 8.4 GHz+ OC Achievement: Cooled to Near-Absolute Zero
TechPowerUp recently brought you news on AMDs fantastic overclocking achievement with their new processors. Now we can tell you how it was done: cherry-picking the chips and slapping on some water cooling isn't quite enough. AMDs new processors can operate at much lower temperatures without displaying the "cold bug" - where it just gives up and goes home - and performance scales very well at super-low temperatures. The problem is that the cold affects lots of things such as timing, but more importantly, power circuits, which stop switching and just fry everything in sight - surely one to avoid. AMD senior manager of social media, Simon Solotko explains in detail how it was all done, using both liquid helium and liquid nitrogen to make the poor processor really cold. The new processor had these great qualities, according to Solotko:
TechPowerUp recently brought you news on AMDs fantastic overclocking achievement with their new processors. Now we can tell you how it was done: cherry-picking the chips and slapping on some water cooling isn't quite enough. AMDs new processors can operate at much lower temperatures without displaying the "cold bug" - where it just gives up and goes home - and performance scales very well at super-low temperatures. The problem is that the cold affects lots of things such as timing, but more importantly, power circuits, which stop switching and just fry everything in sight - surely one to avoid. AMD senior manager of social media, Simon Solotko explains in detail how it was all done, using both liquid helium and liquid nitrogen to make the poor processor really cold. The new processor had these great qualities, according to Solotko:
It was able to take a lot of voltage, extremely low temperatures, extremely high frequencies," he said. "It was very durable under extreme overclocking. So that was awesome. So it worked well, it scaled well, it responded to cold well - all the right variables.This overclock is an impressive feat and it will be interesting to see if Intel can match it.