Hey guys. I wasn’t sure where else to put a tech question but here in GQ, so here goes. Right now I have a 450 MHz Pentium III system. I see them selling 1.0 GHz Pention III systems in stores. Does this mean that the chip in my computer would do just fine at 1.0 GHz or would I just get myself into trouble if I replaced the crystal? Thanks in advance for the help.
Basically, you would just get yourself in trouble. A 450 MHz Pentium III was not designed to run at 1.0 GHz. I don’t know exactly how it would fail, but I’m pretty sure it would.
Don’t touch it! You need to understand many things before you overclock. There are several speeds on the motherboard (CPU, buses, etc) and you need to understand everything. Go to a site dedicated to overclocking but my advice is that you leave things alone because you should not touch things unless you know exactly what you are doing and assume the risks and consequences. BTW, overclocking normally does not involve changing any crystals, just a few jumpers.
Thanks for the replies. They didn’t go exactly where I meant them to though. Maybe I wasn’t specific enough. I’m not so much trying to overclock my chip as I’m trying to use its untapped potential. All I was asking really was whether there was a difference between my P3 CPU and the new ones aside from the timing crystals cuz if there’s not I can (in theory) maintain without screwing myself over speeds up to and possibly surpassing 1.0 GHz. I know my bus can handle it. The only one that would be too slow is the old ASE parallel port that I use for my ZIP because I don’t like to route the printer through it. So does anybody know if the CPU I have differs at all from those in the newer P3 machines? Thanks again, and I hope I asked it right this time. If one of you did answer the question I intended, I’m sorry to have asked it again. Thanks.
The way I remember it, there are indeed differences between early P-IIIs and newer 1 GHz and beyond P-IIIs. The basic architecture is the same more or less but they are made w/ different processes (better process means smaller die size means less heat), there are varied amounts of cache, and the quality of the CPU is better. The reason why chip producers can’t come out w/ the fastest CPU immeadiately is because they have to increase the quality of the CPUs such that they can acheive the higher speeds without failure. You can usually get away w/ decent increases in clock speed w/o changing much but you need to adjust a lot of things to get large increases. You end up hitting a limit somewhere when the CPU can no longer handle the load you put on it no matter how much cooling you have.
OK–this is just an educated guess. It seems HIGHLY UNLIKELY that Intel could achieve a 2x speedup by just using a different crystal. So while you might be able to get some increase by overclocking, you would probably not get anywhere near what you want.
It seems like ya’ll answered the question I intended the first time around. Thanks again for the replies. Oh, and to correct one of my many typing errors, I meant ISA. I accidentally typed it backwards. Thanks again all.
>> I’m not so much trying to overclock my chip as I’m trying to use its untapped potential
Can you explain that? What “untapped potential”? If you are not overclocking what are you planning on doing? I have no clue what you mean.
A P3-450 is VERY different from a P3-1000: It’s SLOWER!
There isn’t much “untapped potential” to be had. The 450 was designed when 450 Mhz was fast. Now, 1 Ghz is fast.
Think of the processor as a pipeline. A 450 Mhz processor is a pipe that’s, say, five feet wide. A 1000 Mhz proc is, say, ten feet wide. Suffice to say, the 1000 is going to be able to DO MORE. Now, you can increase the pressure in the 450 pipeline (i.e.- overclock it), but if you increase the pressure too much, the pipeline will rupture.
If you’re thinking of UPGRADING… well… chances are you’ll have to buy a new motherboard, as well. However, most of your peripherals shouldn’t be affected by the switch of processors… they don’t usually care what CPU is running things, just as long as SOMETHING is telling them what to do.
You might overclock that 450 to 500 tops, and you risk frying components that way. Buy a new motherboard and 1 GHZ PIII chip. Doing what you originaly posted will most likely fry everything that is connected to the motherboard.