AMD and Intel trade overclocking records

SINCE AN OVERCLOCKING event a few months ago, there has been an almighty pissing match between the two performance gurus at AMD and Intel. During CES, we managed to get the two of them together for some quality time and occasional mayhem.

One from Intel, one from AMD, can you tell?

The short story goes like this. During a press overclocking event in late November, AMD got a Phenom II up to 6.3GHz with LN2 cooling. Intel immediately cried foul, and said that they were one in a million cherry-picked samples, and that they would top it.

There have been several back and forths between super-OC'd i7s and Phenom IIs, with the current records being a little in favour of AMD for quad cores. As you can see here, things currently stand at 5611Mhz for an i7, 6436MHz for a Phenom II. That said, Mhz does not equal performance, and this is not to say that the i7 won't get more work done at 5.6GHz than the Phenom will at 6.4Ghz... wait, this is silly. Neither can do much at that frequency other than make an overclocker very nervous, holding his breath and clenching certain lower abdominal muscles hoping things don't crash.

Round two of the micturating match happened at CES, in a tent outside of Fugger's top secret  lair and place of work. AMD brought a tent, Intel brought lots of goodies, and Gigabyte and DFI handed out mobos. Add in a huge tank of liquid helium, and you have fun and smoke in the Nevada suburbs. The best collection of pictures we have found is here.

So, in round two, AMD showed the Phenom II was not a fluke, and the kicking they were getting from Intel over the last two or so years may be nearing an end. Barcelona didn't stand a chance, Core 2, then i7 stomped those silly. The 45nm parts, however, have potential to make things into a real fight.

At the 'duel of the dual duals in the desert' (lets face it, 'quads in the desert' sounds like something entirely different) AMD managed to set a 3DMark05 record of 45474. Gauntlet thrown for the second generation of quads using a PII-ES @ 4481MHz at -230C.

Not to be outdone, Intel came back Monday night brandishing a Fugger and an as-yet-unseen elsewhere i7 975, sans -ES. They scored 47026 in 3DMark05 @ 4534Mhz. Not bad for three weeks, Intel has the crown for round three.

As you may have noticed, there is some pretty exotic hardware here, enough helium to make a non-CPU enthusiast sound like one, and some serious interest by several manufacturers. Intel has the lead by low single digit percentages, and the game is still far from over.

Keep an eye on this war, it is going to get even hotter, quite the ironic statement considering the amount of liquid helium flying about. µ