Mother Nature Helps Crank Celeron To 550 MHz

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January 11, 1999 (4:07 PM EST)

Mother Nature Helps Crank Celeron To 550 MHz

By Andy Patrizio,

Jeremy Allford, who runs the hardware-review site AGN Hardware, has succeeded in making a 366-MHz Celeron run at 550 MHz, faster than any chip Intel has on the market.

But Allford had to drag his PC outside his Ohio home, where temperatures fell below zero and the snow was up to his knees.

Overclocking the CPU is the 1990s equivalent of souping up a standard-issue automobile into a muscle car. It is an especially popular practice among hard-core PC gamers, who want to get as many frames per second out of graphic-intensive games as possible.

Hardware hackers have found that Intel is often conservative in its CPU speeds.

By changing settings on the motherboard or in the computer's BIOS, a 300-MHz Pentium II can be forced to run as fast as 504 MHz. The drawback is it creates heat that can lock up software, cause hardware to fail, and in the worst case, damage hardware.

Intel distanced itself from overclocking efforts. "It's not something we recommend normal consumers do," said Chuck Mulloy, an Intel spokesman. "There are a number of risks associated with doing that." Although a 300-MHz Celeron may run at 450 MHz, it might not perform well in the long run and could burn out, Mulloy added.

Overclocking requires a great deal of cooling for the case and CPU, but Allford thinks it's worth it. A Pentium II 450, the top of the line chip from Intel (aside from Xeon), costs almost $500. On the other hand, a good fan costs $100, and the 366-MHz chip is just $135.

"If you have the possibility of a $250 investment, a little more than half the cost of a [Pentium II] 450 but 100-MHz faster than the Pentium III, isn't that worth it if you're a tinkerer who has to have the best system?" he said.

Intel has battled unscrupulous PC vendors that sell overclocked PCs to unsuspecting customers, who could then encounter hardware and software problems.

Nevertheless, Intel's Mulloy was amused by Allford's natural form of CPU cooling. "It's probably more cost effective than nitrogen cooling," he said.

When the 366-MHz and 400-MHz Celerons were released, Allford found the core technology was the same as the 300A and 333 chips, an overclocker's dream. "I've never heard of a 300A that couldn't be overclocked to 450," he said.

To make the 550-MHz Celeron run, Allford used a floor fan pointed at the open case as well as Mother Nature's chill. When the fan was removed, the computer locked up.

Allford ran the experiment for the fun of it. To run it indoors, he said a strong CPU fan designed for overclocking -- such as Peltier design fans, or fans from ComputerNerd -- are needed. Peltier uses a heat sink and fan, while ComputerNerd has a Celeron fan that sits on both sides of the CPU, sandwiching it with five fans for maximum cooling.

Once he gets a Celeron fan, Allford expects to run the computer inside his house. Since publishing his findings late last week, four others have written him to say they have overclocked their 366-MHz Celerons to 550 MHz, he said.