No, Dave is right. Extreme overclocking using LN2, Helium or DICE serves no purpose other than bragging rights and marketing for the respective chip companies. Clocks achieved using any of these temporary methods are so far beyond the thermal designs of the chips that they will never be achieved using conventional cooling. Cooling that can be run 24/7, like watercooling gives a more realistic idea of the maximum clocks that can ever be achieved with a silicon respin.

Extreme overclocking does have a purpose, right off the bat, it shows the flexibility and limitations of a given CPU design and how much room there is to grow provided the cip makers has success reducing power consumption and heat generation...

was a typo, meant superconductor. Thanks

Yes silicon is a semiconductor:

http://www16.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=silicon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_materials

There's a very large difference between the two. Normally, when a component is rated with a wide operational range, this is for *continuous use*. The expectation is that the milspec chip can be chucked in a hot tank, in a hot desert, and still work.

Extreme overclocking makes about as much sense as drag racing : it's fun for a short while, but absolutely no use in the real world.

If it keeps people happy, fine, but personally I see it as utterly pointless unless it results in generally usable products or some sort of genuine cost/benefit tradeoff.

Well, first off there is an enormous difference between liquid helium and superfluid helium.... helium is a liquid below 4.2k and a superfluid below 2.17k, which may not seem like a lot, but it is. Second silicon is not a semiconductor, it can be turned into a superdonductor i believe if it is doped enough, chip silicon no though. Plenty of applications use liquid HE though, without it being HE-II and crawling up the walls and stuff.

Chew*

I doubt it, liquid helium has been used in extreme overclocking attempts for a bit now (I think as far back as '06-'07 at least) and AFAIK it hasn't caused any unexpected issues.

Helium 4 only turns superfluid below –271 °C which it is never likely to reach.

I don't think the chip will start superconducting either. Although some semiconducters can superconduct: Diamond and SiC are examples, I don't think anybody has observed superconductivity in silicon [yet].

Amazing stuff really. It's a nice demonstration of how chip performance is heat limited, not electronically limited.

Also, it's a testament to AMD's chip fab process that a Phenom can take such thermal abuse. Just imagine what a strain all those bumps and the underfill are under when the whole thing's cooled to -146! Most milSpec components are -40 to +85, so what's the spec of the Phenom?

I bet an Nvidia chip would just fall to pieces given their current track record.

"Since 95.6% ethanol and 4.4% water form an azeotrope (meaning that simple distillation cannot remove any of the remaining water), 191-proof spirits are the maximum proof that is available from the distilled beverage industry. As Everclear is a neutral grain spirit, it is relatively low in congeners."

I would think a modified Dewer flask would be better than Everclear. The vacuum would significantly reduce the contact by the N2 with the warm outside, except for where it contacted the chip.

Why not toss the whole motherboard into the liquid N2?

I could go into why Everclear is only 190 proof and not 200, but it would take some 'splainin' and I don't feel like it. It's something we went over in my undergraduate chemical engineering education.

The nice thing about going to a college with chemical engineering and chemistry students is that you could always get your hands on pure ethanol for use at parties. Awesomely wicked stuff.

Well, you can't get Everclear in NY. At least not legally. The best I have found is Devil Springs at 160 proof (80%). It works for me, but I am just using it to sterilize wine making equipment. I have accidentally breathed MUCH more than I have drunk.

The Mad Winemaker

Oh, boy, are they going to be surprised when they start using liquid Helium. Assuming they can get enough, it's a superfluid, with damn near zero viscosity and density, which means it will flow upwards, also very slippery. Not to mention insanely cold.

At some point, the chip carrier and substrate is going to shatter, not to mention the silicon itself.

If the chip gets cold enough, it'll go superconducting on them, which will completely screw things up, as common logic circuits are not designed with superconduction in mind.

I have played with acrylic pipes before and they always shattered on me when I poured a sub zero liquid into them. Maybe they used something stronger, like Polycarbonate instead.