Overclocking... usually frowned on by manu... but AMD, not quite.

[W1nTry]

Usually overclocking is something that u do with a bit of concern. At least if ur hardware costs alot and is prone to failure, whether it be overheating *coughs precott* and of course there is the problem with voiding ur warranty. Now consider that we may have to some degree some protection whilst overclocking, at least as far as warranties go. Below is a nice article about what could imply some coverage for top of the line CPU's at least thats the way I see it as why would u boast a chip as being 'unlocked' if u didn't expect ppl to use that fact to their and your company's (via great benchies for the company's bragging rights) advantage? Take a read:

AMD to officially sanction overclocking

FX57: What you need to know

By Désiré Athow: Thursday 23 June 2005, 19:16
* BUT, AMD HAS asked us to clarify a point on the overclocking. A representative told the INQ today, Friday: "We have always liked overclockers and done what we could to support them but we have always said that they do it at their own risk. If they break the part by overclocking then that is their risk, because overclocking does void the waranty as it involves operating the part outside of its designed parameters."

AMD INVITED some hacks in Londonium to one-to-one, face-to-face presentations, as a prelude to the launch of the AMD forthcoming FX57 processor.

We were separately told that the FX57 will come very soon and will be available in quantity from launch.

We also learned that the FX57 would be pimped as an overclocking processor.

AMD said it would actively promote the FX processor as an overclocking processor. We asked whether all processors will be guaranteed Overclockable out of the box and were greeted with a big smile. AMD is going to provide a list of overclocking possibilities, air and non-air, some of which it will endorse, we learned.

AMD will use the word 'unlocked' in its literature but will forbid the use of the word "overclockable". Oops.

The two main differences between the FX57 and the FX55 may be the speed and price. The FX55 currently costs $855 in 1000 pieces while the FX57 will cost around $1040.

AMD will let slip two parts costing over $1000 apiece. The second is the smallish speed bump of 200MHz to 2.8GHz.

The FX55 will continue to be sold and not discontinued as it was the case with the FX51 and the FX53. So the FX57 could be seen as the "Extreme Edition" of its chips.

The FX57 is geared towards gaming and the X2 will cater for those engaged in Content Creation.

AMD will put even more emphasis on this segmentation so there is no overlapping of the two products in people's minds. The FXs will be the best for gaming: designing games, distributing them and playing them.

Performance wise, benchmarks from AMD showed increases in performance of around 7% over the FX55, which correspond to the seven per cent increase in speed, while improvements on Single Core PEE 3.73GHz hoevered around 15 per cent on average. Benchmarks were done using industry standard software like Sysmark or 3DMark.

AMD has confirmed that FX will move to DDR2 memory in the "future". Probably next year, said the spokeswoman.

Another certainty is that FX is moving to dual core in 2006. Furthermore, AMD argues that the growing console market and the forthcoming triple threat - from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft - will probably not reduce demand for a PC-based FX systems which are more of an all-rounder.