Re: All this talk of a new GS...

[Phoenyx <quazar@dcnet2000.com>]

Most OEM's are conservative on their ratings, especially Intel.
It helps to build a good reputation. A while back, I remember
reading a spec from Intel which stated they test for the most
reliable speed and then reduce by 10%. At least I think that
was the figure they used. I don't think they are doing this any
more except maybe with the Celeron. All the P2 cpu's I have
worked with won't tolerate over clocking. The Celeron though
will, but if it's highly over clocked the system will report an
incorrect speed. For example, I over clocked a Celeron 300 to
the max the board would allow. The bios claimed 450 mhz, but
Linux reported a more accurate speed of 380. This was just a
test though, to prove a point to another fellow who swore his
system was running at 450. I normally discourage over clocking
a system unless there is no other way to speed things up. Some
times, this 'enhancement' can lead to serious and hard to find
system problems.

I have found that most of the older cpu's were more tolerant of
over clocking. I expect that this is mainly due to the extra
heat and possibly timing. As example of a heat issue. My AMD
500 system was a little flaky when I first put it together. It
would give random failures and core dumps in Linux. When the
cpu fan gave out, it trashed the data on both hd's. Well, I
replaced the fan with a larger cooling system and have had no
trouble with this at all.

Every time I work on a PC, I realize why I love the Apple 2!

Phoenyx