Duron: Green vs Blue (2/2)
Posted by Wesley on |  |
| Before... | After! |
Yup! These chips are obviously locked. It's the time for the pencil unlocking again. I've posted a how-to page on this some time ago, so the people who are unfamiliar with what I'm saying can go there. I have, however, attempted to take a better picture on how the chip looks before and after the unlocking is done, so you can click on the above images for a bigger one and pay attention to the orange arrow.
Unlocking finished, I have attempted overclocking at various speeds.
| CPU: | AMD Duron 650MHz (Both) |
| M/B: | Asus A7V (KT-133 Chipset) |
| Cooling: | Alpha PAL6035MUC Fan/Heatsink |
| RAM: | 128MB x 2 Hyundai PC-133 SDRAM |
| Video: | SUMA GeForce2 GTS 32MB |
| OS: | Windows 2000 SP1 |
| Else: | Classified ^_^ |
| Speed | Config | Voltage | Green | Blue |
| 650MHz | 100 x 6.5 | 1.50V | Perfect | Perfect |
| 700MHz | 100 x 7.0 | 1.50V | Perfect | Perfect |
| 735MHz | 113 x 6.5 | 1.50V | Good | Perfect |
| 750MHz | 100 x 7.5 | 1.50V | Boot Stop | Good |
| 800MHz | 100 x 8.0 | 1.50V | POST Stop | Boot Stop |
| 800MHz | 100 x 8.0 | 1.70V | Perfect | Perfect |
| 850MHz | 100 x 8.5 | 1.80V | Perfect | Perfect |
| 892MHz | 105 x 8.5 | 1.80V | Boot Stop | Boot Stop |
| 892MHz | 105 x 8.5 | 1.85V | Perfect | Perfect |
| 900MHz | 100 x 9.0 | 1.85V | Good | Perfect |
| 910MHz | 107 x 8.5 | 1.85V | Good | Perfect |
| 927MHz | 103 x 9.0 | 1.85V | Boot Stop | Perfect |
| 945MHz | 105 x 9.0 | 1.85V | POST Stop | Good |
| 950MHz | 100 x 9.5 | 1.85V | POST Stop | Good |
| 963MHz | 107 x 9.0 | 1.85V | No POST | Boot Stop |
| 1000MHz | 100 x 10.0 | 1.85V | No POST | POST Stop |
Perfect = No Crashes Whatsoever
Good = Benchmark Crashes and Freezes Occasionally on Normal Use
Boot Stop = Computer Crashes During Boot or Immediately After Boot
POST Stop = Computer Crashes Before POST finishes
No POST = Cannot Boot At All
As the table shows, while the GREEN one hit the ceiling at 892MHz, the BLUE one had no problems up to 927MHz. The latter even showed me 1000MHz on the screen... I think I may try a voltage boost some time to get that 1GHz mark.
For now, though, I think I'll stay at this point. BLUE chip overclocking 5.4% higher than the GREEN chip at the same condition is not too shabby.You should note that the GREEN chip showed almost an identical overclockability as the original green Duron shown at the pencil unlocking article, if you click here. In fact, I almost thought the new green Duron was my old dead one.
But this isn't the end of the story - the two green Durons that went through my hands were all made in WEEK 25, while reports of the blue Durons reveal that they are either of WEEK 27, like mine, or WEEK 22. From this, I think the logical explanations for all this could be either...
1. The blue Durons are somehow made in Dresden, defying the current knowledge. The copper interconnects contributed to the better overclockability of the blue type compared to the green type.
2. The blue Durons are from Austin, but on week 27, they had to use a different polish. The better overclockability may be from the better bin-splits that week had.
Some other speculations are possible, of course. What's your take on the issue? How did your 'blue' Durons fare compared to the 'green' Durons? Let me hear it at my new message board! Click below!
P.S. No, I did not post a benchmark comparing the two.... I thought it's pointless to do it... but if many of you want it, maybe I'll post it.