Unlock P4 Multipliers

[Him]

Apparently ASUS now offers a feature on some of their Skt. 775 mobo's to unlock the multiplier on a P4 775. Thats pretty killer!

http://www7.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040916/

 

[SHAWN]

Wow, Nice!

 

[idiotec]

Yes, it is a pretty cool feature, but it is not a full unlock. It lets you change the multiplier from stock to 14. I have this feature on my board and use it. If you look in my sig, that is how I have it running at 266x14. Stock multi is 17.

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Well #1 toms is wrong at the reason why intel origionally locked the multilpliers, it was due to small PC manafactuers overclocking their chips to gain a HUGE profit

And that Asus Bios looks like you can just change the multiplier down, but not up

 

[Him]

By kicking down the multiplier though, it allows me to crank my FSB higher, which would be better for speed gains right?

Example (stick with me on this one, it's just an example) I have a 800mhz chip, and the fsb is 100, so it would be 100x8 (8 being the multiplier. Firguring that the multiplier is only unlocked to go down, if I dropped the multi to 4 and bumped the FSB to 200 (so it would be the same, just 200x4 rather than 100x8) I would theoretically get higher speeds right? Since the FSB is higher, it can allow more bandwidth. This is the reasoning for multipliers being able to go down, right?

Basically, since we are no longer allowed to up the multiplier, the lower the multiplier and the higher FSB is better than a low FSB and a high multi right? Do you know what I'm saying? I know what I'm saying.

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Yeah I know what your saying

Us AMD folk have been doing that for a long time

 

[Him]

Well, since I am in your list I fugured you would not know what I was saying.

But am I right? Lower multiplier and higher FSB is better? And listen you AMD people, us Intel people still have a job to do!

 

[gaara]

Any multiplier is unlocked in the sense that it can be decreased.

The only benefit of lowering your multi and raising your FSB would be if your RAM can keep up at a 1:1 ratio. Once your RAM maxes out, there's no point to increasing the FSB.

 

[Him]

1:1 ratio is ideal, right? I've seen systems with a 4:5 ratio and things like that, is it just best to go with a 1:1 ratio?

Any multiplier is unlocked in the sense that it can be decreased.

Not true. All Intel chips are locked, the new ones anyway, I believe they have been since the start of P3. This is a new case, and they can be decreased. Yes, AMD's have always been unlocked in the sense that they can be decreased. Maybe not always and maybe not all of them, but a great deal. This is Intel though. They are a little more greedy than AMD, it seems.

 

[gaara]

Using memory dividers are usually only applicable if your RAM maxes out before your FSB, and you can still achieve a higher CPU clock speed. However, if your CPU speed maxes out before your RAM speed, you can lower the multiplier and effectively raise the FSB speed to match the RAM speed without the need for dividers.

For example, I am almost positive my Rev2s will be able to hit 300MHz with 3v+, and possibly beyond that. I'm quite certain also that with the stock multi of 10x, my HTT speed won't be able to keep up. Therefore I'll most likely end up lowering the multi to 9x or even 8x so that I can keep the HTT speed up with the RAM speed for better bandwidth.

It's pretty stupid to have one faster than the other as they won't communicate at the same speed and will bottleneck.