On August 31, an AMD FX processor achieved a frequency of 8.429GHz, a stunning result for a modern, multi-core processor. The record was achieved with several days of preparation and an amazing and inspired run in front of world renowned technology press in Austin, Texas. This frequency bests the prior record of 8.309GHz, and completely blows away any modern desktop processor. Based on our overclocking tests, the AMD FX CPU is a clock eating monster, temporarily able to withstand extreme conditions to achieve amazing speed. Even with more conservative methods, the AMD FX processors, with multiplier unlocked throughout the range, appear to scale with cold.  We also achieved clock frequencies well above 5GHz using only air or sub-$100 water cooling solutions.

The result was achieved in a technology grand prix that must be seen to be believed. The refinement of techniques employed by the world’s finest overclockers creates a stunning scene that looks as if we are about to bring the machine to life. It was recorded by a fantastic video team and validated with a most useful tool called CPU-Z, the de facto standard for overclockers looking to capture a moment of stability under extreme conditions, or more practically under conservative tuning. The video has now launched and we hope you will enjoy the spectacle of extreme overclocking and the record-breaking capabilities of our upcoming AMD FX processors.

If your browser does not support Shockwave simply click here to view the video Maximum Speed | AMD FX Processor Takes Guinness World Record

About a month before, we invited the insightful and relentless overclocker Brian McLachlan for initial testing, to validate the AMD FX CPUs overclocking potential and respond to a combination of extreme cold and high voltage overclocking. To our satisfaction AMD FX processors passed the first tests, overclocking with liquid nitrogen at temperatures below -180 degrees centigrade. We could find no cold bug, the bane of overclockers, which often stops modern processors from functioning in extremely cold conditions. The question, which we have answered once before, was whether the AMD FX processor would continue to scale, to achieve higher frequencies, if we dropped the temperate further below this unbelievably cold threshold. Would the extreme cold of the liquid helium, a substance only a few degrees higher than absolute zero, break this processor, or by improving conductivity and decreasing temperatures, allow it to run even faster?

In the week prior to the event we sent a number of processors to Brian and to Sami Mӓkinen, the renowned AMD overclocker in Finland, to identify the candidates for a potential world record run. After a few days of testing, eight processors were found to be able to hit over 8GHz in their expert hands.

We ran through three staged systems in a demonstration for the press. On the third run, everything went perfectly, and a world record fell.

Welcome back, AMD FX. And thank you to the team. Sami Maekinen, Brian Mclachlan, Pete Hardman, Aaron Schradin – AMD FX processor overclockers.

Of course, records are made to be broken and we look forward to seeing the community push the AMD FX CPU even further. We think we are just scratching the surface.

Note:  Overclocking and extreme cooling will void your hardware warranties and could cause serious damage to your PC hardware. We destroy motherboards, processors, and graphics cards at an alarming rate doing it. Liquid Helium and Liquid Nitrogen are incredibly dangerous in untrained hands and among some of the coldest substances in the universe. This record was achieved by some of the most experienced and methodical overclockers in the world and you should not attempt to recreate this experiment without major safety precautions and seriously thinking about the potential consequences of your actions.

Simon Solotko is a Senior Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

With our AMD HD3D technology, we’ve brought support for stereo 3D to our current generations of graphics solutions; ATI Radeon™ HD 5000, AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 Series and A-Series APUs. The quad buffer not only enables stereo 3D video playback, but can be used to add native support for stereo 3D in video games and supports DirectX ®9, 10 and 11. Eidos-Montreal has recently announced their implementation of native HD3D using this same quad buffer API, and now this is open to all developers so anyone can download on AMD Developer Central.

AMD’s approach to the stereo 3D ecosystem is simple; build the stereo 3D experience you want to have.  We don’t limit, hinder or block; we leverage multiple interoperable hardware and software partners to give you choice, flexibility and affordability.  Even with all of these choices, setting up HD3D is a lot easier than you think.  Take a look at these two videos on How to Set up HD3D in 60 seconds for stereo 3D gaming and Blu-ray 3D playback. As we continue to see the PC and entertainment industries embrace stereo 3D as a technology, there are more and more opportunities to experience this technology in the home, and with this public release we hope to add to this momentum.

Shane Parfitt is a Product Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Here is what is new this month!

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 release for Microsoft Windows include:

OpenGL ES 2.0 support

• ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 provides full support for OpenGL ES 2.0 specification
• Enables 3D accelerated graphics within a web browser that supports OpenGL ES 2.0
• Supported on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7

Performance enhancement for Quad ATI CrossFireX™ configurations using ATI Eyefinity technology

• Performance has been greatly improved for users running with ATI Eyefinity technology on a Quad ATI CrossFireX™ configuration

Anti-Aliasing support for StarCraft II

• ATI Catalyst Control Center™ now  enables Anti-Aliasing for StarCraft II

Performance highlights:

Far Cry 2:

• Performance increases 2-6% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series single and ATI CrossFireX™ configurations.
• Performance increases 2-4% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series single and ATI CrossFireX™ configurations.
• Performance increases 3-8% on ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series single and ATI CrossFireX™ configurations.

Left 4 Dead 2:

• Performance increases 3-5% on ATI CrossFireX™ configurations using the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 series and ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 series.

Stormrise:

• Performance increases 5-10% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5600  series and ATI Radeon™ HD 5500 series configurations.

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ driver for Linux 10.8 release include:

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ driver for  Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: 
  • SLED/SLES 11 SP1 production support

OpenGL ES 2.0 support

• ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 provides full support for OpenGL ES 2.0 specification
• Enables 3D accelerated graphics within a web browser that supports OpenGL ES 2.0
• Supported on Linux distributions

For more information on ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst™ 10.8 release notes.

To download the driver, click here.

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Here is what is new this month!

New Windows Features

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 release for Microsoft Windows include:

ATI Eyefinity Technology – Enhancements for HydraVision™

• Maximizing a window across multiple displays will now take user defined bezel compensation into account
• Automatically adjusts window position when dragging and dropping windows to ensure title bar visibility
• Proper dialog box placement – dialogs do not cross displays, are not hidden behind bezels, and can be designated to be shown on the users “preferred” display

Enhanced Pull-down detection

• The Pull-down detection algorithm has been enhanced for higher visual quality on certain types of video content
• Supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series of GPUs

ATI CrossFireX™ technology – support for rotated displays

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ enables end users running supported ATI CrossFireX™ configurations to rotate their displays (single or ATI Eyefinity display configurations) and still enjoy the performance benefits of ATI CrossFireX™ technology

ATI Radeon™ GPU acceleration of VLC 1.1.1 Media Player

• Enables GPU acceleration of h.264 video content when using the VLC 1.1.1 Media Player – enabling a better user experience by consuming less system resources
• Supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 and ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series of GPU products
• Requires VLC version 1.1.1 and later

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ driver for Linux 10.7 release include:

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ driver for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: 
  • Ubuntu 10.04 production support

ATI Eyefinity support

• ATI Catalyst™ driver for Linux 10.7 provides support for ATI Eyefinity technology under all supported Linux distributions

For more information on ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst™ 10.7 release notes.

To download the driver, click here.

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Here is what is new this month!

New Windows Features

Support for 120 Hz displays for ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series GPUs

• ATI Catalyst™ driver now supports 120 Hz Displays for the ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 and ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series graphics cards

New Linux Features

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ driver for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems: 
  • SLED/SLES 11 SP1  early look support

For more information on ATI Catalyst 10.5 (for Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, Windows® XP, and Linux® versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst 10.5 release notes.

To download the driver, click here.

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Another great release of ATI Catalyst ™ drivers is upon us.    As you will see below, several key features and awesome improvements have been added to this month’s driver release.

Let’s take a look at what is new this month!

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst™ 10.3 release includes:

New Features

ATI Catalyst™ support for ATI Mobility Radeon™ Premium Graphics solutions

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ introduces support for the production version of Microsoft ® Windows® 7 and Windows Vista® for notebooks featuring the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 2000 Series, ATI Mobility Radeon ™  HD 3000 Series, and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4000 Series, and planned support future ATI Mobility Radeon ™ products.  
• Supported by most major OEM and ODM notebook manufacturers 

ATI Catalyst™ Control Center – ATI Eyefinity technology enhancements¹

• Display Bezel Compensation
  • Easy-to-use wizard  shows users how to adjust their display layout to remove the pixels occupied by their display bezels²
• Per-Display Color Adjust
  • Individual Color, Brightness,  and Contrast controls
• Multiple ATI Eyefinity Technology Groups
  • Create more than one ATI Eyefinity group from multiple displays
• Improved Display Configuration switching
  • Support for ATI Eyefinity groups and the ATI Catalyst™ Control Center profile manager
  • Easy to toggle between cloned and extended desktop modes

ATI Catalyst™ support for 3D Stereoscopic glasses

• AMD has updated its Direct3D (Quad buffer support) driver to enable 3rd party middleware vendors such as iZ3D to output stereo L/R images at 120 Hz (60 Hz per eye)

For more information on ATI Catalyst™ 10.3 (for Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, Windows® XP, and Linux® versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst™ 10.3 release notes.

To download the driver, click here.

ATI Catalyst™ 10.3 driver is getting some great feedback from press!  I have included some links below that showcase some of positive press we have received so far with our preview of ATI Catalyst™ 10.3:

HardOCP: here

TweakTown: here

Legit Reviews: here

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

1 ATI Eyefinity technology can support multiple displays using a single enabled ATI Radeon™ graphics card – the number of displays may vary by board design and you should confirm exact specifications with the applicable manufacturer before purchase. ATI Eyefinity technology works with games that support non-standard aspect ratios, which is required for panning across multiple displays. To enable more than two displays, additional panels with native DisplayPort™ connectors, and/or certified DisplayPort™ adapters to convert your monitor’s native input to your cards DisplayPort™ or Mini-DisplayPort™ connector, are required.

2 Bezel compensation is available only for sets of monitors that have pixel resolution and density within a 5% tolerance of each other

It’s that time again for the ATI Catalyst™ driver update!  We have been getting great comments and feedback from the community because of this blog site.  Please continue to send us your feedback as we do review them all*.

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Here is what is new in ATI Catalyst 9.12:

ATI Catalyst™ support for DirectCompute 10.1

• This release of ATI Catalyst provides full support for DirectCompute 10.1 for the ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 4700 Series for both single card and configurations supporting ATI CrossFireX™ technology.

OpenGL 3.2 extension support

• This release of ATI Catalyst provides support for OpenGL 3.2 extension support on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 4000 Series, ATI Radeon™ HD 3000 Series and ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 Series GPUs.

• The following is a list of OpenGL™ 3.2 features and extensions added in ATI Catalyst 9.12:
  • Support for OpenGL Shading Language 1.50.
  • BGRA vertex component ordering (GL_ARB_vertex_array_bgra).
  • Drawing commands allowing modification of the base vertex index (GL_ARB_draw_elements_base_vertex).
  • Shader fragment coordinate convention control (GL_ARB_fragment_coord_conventions).
  • Provoking vertex control (GL_ARB_provoking_vertex).
  • Seamless cube map filtering (GL_ARB_seamless_cube_map).
  • Multisampled textures and texture samplers for specific sample locations (GL_ARB_texture_multisample).
  • Fragment depth clamping (GL_ARB_depth_clamp).
  • Geometry shaders (GL_ARB_geometry_shader4).
  • Fence sync objects (GL_ARB_sync).
  • transform_feedback2
  • texture_cubemap_array

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst 9.12 driver release for Linux include:

New Features

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst driver release for Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:

• RedFlag DT6.0 SP3
• SLED and SLES 10SP3

ATI Catalyst Control Center™ –  Linux Edition:  Displays pages: user interface enhancements

• This release of ATI Catalyst driver release for Linux introduces support for a number of new display features found in the ATI Catalyst Control Center –  Linux Edition, highlights include:
  • CRT/VGA settings
  • TV settings
  • Component Video settings
  • Support for display projectors

• New Size and Position page
• New HDTV page

• New option for “Automatic setting for Size and Position adjustment”
• New image quality settings:  “flicker removal” and “S-Video/Composite sharpness”

• New Scaling Options page – new Overscan / Underscan controls
• New custom mode support for 576 modes

• Enables quick display configuration of display projectors

For more information on ATI Catalyst 9.12 (for Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux versions), including all of the resolved issues in this release, please see the ATI Catalyst 9.12 release notes.

To download the Catalyst 9.12 driver, click here.

In addition, the ATI Catalyst 9.12 hotfix driver will be made available today!

Highlights of the ATI Catalyst 9.12 hotfix release includes:

Support for the OpenCL™ GPU component of the ATI Stream SDK v2.0

• The ATI Catalyst 9.12 hotfix release provides full support for GPU acceleration of OpenCL when used in conjunction with the ATI Stream SDK v2.0.   This feature is supported on the ATI Radeon HD 5970 Series, ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series, ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series, ATI Radeon HD 4000 Series and the AMD FireStream™ 9200 Series of products.

For more information about ATI Stream technology and OpenCL, please visit. http://www.amd.com/stream

Support for ATI CrossFireX™ technology on configurations employing ATI Eyefinity technology configurations The ATI Catalyst 9.12 hotfix release provides support for ATI CrossFireX™ technology on configurations employing ATI Eyefinity technology, allowing users to take advantage of their additional GPUs for increased gaming performance when driving high resolution displays

• Supported on the ATI Radeon HD 5970 Series, ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series, and ATI Radeon HD 5700 Series

Support for DisplayPort audio

• The ATI Catalyst 9.12 hotfix release adds support for DisplayPort audio for DisplayPort panels

Fixes the following issues:

• Resident Evil 5 – Performance drop during the opening cinematic
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare – Negative performance observed with a configuration supporting  ATI CrossFireX™ technology when using the thermal scope
• Wheelman – Game freezes while loading the game menu
• Flashing in various OpenGL titles – City of Heroes, Enemy Territories: Quake Wars, and Chronicles of Riddick
• Heaven benchmark (DirectX 9 mode) – Grass flicker and white boarders observed around the edges

Grab the hotfix driver : Here

Till Next Month, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

ATI Radeon HD5790

We recently announced the ATI Radeon™ HD 5970, the fastest graphics card on the planet¹. It’s been an exciting few months with our launch of the first DirectX 11 capable graphics cards, still the only cards in the world to support gaming over three monitors enabled with ATI Eyefinity Technology. This time around, we’re spicing up ultrahigh-end PC gaming with a massive jump in raw performance.

It has really been a huge privilege to be the product manager for the ATI Radeon HD 5970 since we get to work with some of the best hardware and software engineers in the industry and everyone’s been enthusiastically working around the clock to get this product out to you guys. One of the unique facets of this project was that we weren’t necessarily designing towards a strict product definition, but instead had the freedom to go a little wild in overdesigning and over-engineering this board to create something that can overclock like crazy.² Why did we do this? Let me give you a little glimpse of this monster in the making…

When we were first designing the ATI Radeon HD 5970, we came to a crossroads surrounding the board’s power consumption. We had two major options available to us. On one hand, we could cap ourselves at 300W and stay within the PCI Express specification. In doing so, we would stay compatible with the majority of the high-end power supplies in the market with 6-pin and 8-pin power connectors. On the other hand, we had the potential to fill a 400W power budget with performance, so we were considering using two 8-pin connectors and pushing this thing to its limits.

Ultimately, we went with a hybrid approach. We decided to appeal to the broader market and use a 6-pin + 8-pin power connector, but use the components from the 400W board design. We squeezed as much performance as we could out of the 300W, and left all the rest of the headroom as overclocking potential for you guys. It’s kind of like our Black Edition CPUs, where the premium chips are picked and shipped with unlocked multipliers so that you guys can overclock the @#$* out of them.

To give you an idea of some of the stuff that we’ve purposely over-engineered, here’s a few examples of some of the components we added purely for overclocking:

• The GPUs themselves were picked with three main criteria in mind:
  • 1600 stream processors for full performance
  • High-speed-capable for extra overclocking headroom
  • Low leakage for better power characteristics
• Digital Volterra Regulators that are capable of delivering far more current than the board draws at default settings
• Japanese 47 μF pure ceramic capacitors for ultra-clean power delivery to the GPUs
• High-speed 5.0 Gbps-rated GDDR5
• Massive vapor-chamber capable of pulling up to 400W worth of heat away from the GPUs
• External discrete SMSC fan controller to monitor multiple temperatures and optimize fan performance and acoustics

We’ve built all of this headroom into the board itself, and we’re also doing some special stuff in the software as well. The bar in the ATI Overdrive™ utility goes higher than ever before, and we’re working with some of our AIB partners on software that will unlock even more overclocking potential through voltage tweaking applications.

Note: AMD’s product warranty does not cover damages caused by overclocking, even when overclocking is enabled via AMD Software.  As well, unlike previous generations of ATI Radeon graphics cards, the overclocking potential of the ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics card has been left uncapped. You control the amount of overclocking to which you subject your card. Please use discretion and caution when overclocking.

^{1. As of November 18, 2009, the ATI Radeon™ HD 5790 scores X12011.1 in 3DMark Vantage Extreme preset, which is the highest recorded single-card score.  System configuration: Intel Core i7 965 processor @ 3.33GHz, Gigabyte EX58-UD5 motherboard, Corsair XMS 6GB memory (3x2GB) at 1600MHz (8-8-8-24 timings), Windows 7 RTM x64, ATI Radeon™ HD 5970 1GB GDDR5, Drivers: ATI Catalyst™ 9.10  Beta (8.663.1) / NVIDIA ForceWare 191.07WHQL}

Devon Nekechuk is a Product Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

*IF you are having technical issues with the ATI Catalyst™ driver, or your graphics card please report your issues here.

Here is what is new in ATI Catalyst™ 9.11:

New Features

GPU Acceleration of H.264 video content using Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ supports the new Hardware Acceleration features of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta for video encoded in the H.264 format.

• Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta introduces hardware-based H.264 video decoding to deliver smooth video playback, reduced system resource utilization, and to help preserve battery life.

• Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta is expected to be available for download from Adobe Labs (labs.adobe.com) before the end of the year. This feature is supported on the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800, ATI Radeon™ HD 5700 and ATI Radeon HD™ 4000 Series of products.

High Quality downscaling for Video Transcoding MSE

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ includes an enhancement for the ATI Video converter for users Transcoding high quality interlaced content (1920x1080i @60i videos) down to small resolution progressive content (320×240 @30p – iPod videos as an example), by maintaining high visual quality when down-scaling by a significant amount and converting interlaced video content to progressive.

Highlights of the Linux ATI Catalyst™ 9.11 release include:

New Features

Support for new Linux operating systems

• This release of ATI Catalyst™ Linux introduces support for the following new operating systems:

• RHEL 5.4 support
• openSUSE 11.2 early look support

To download the driver, click here.

Till Next Month,

Jay Marsden

Jay Marsden is a Public Relations Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links sites and no endorsement is implied.

What do you get when you cross extreme engineering with extreme overclockability?

You get an AMD TWKR CPU.

**WARNING: Extreme overclocking is an activity that should be carried out only by experts, using expert tools in a safe and secure environment. Use of extreme cooling methods and materials, including but not limited to liquid nitrogen, can be extremely hazardous.  Extreme overclocking is not for everyone – AMD urges caution and disclaims all liability for any damages, of any type or character (including without limitation, system damage, loss of data or personal injury) caused as a result of or while engaged in engaging in extreme overclocking activities.

AMD’s product warranty does not cover damages caused by overclocking, even when enabled via AMD software. 

As they say, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! 

Matt Davis aka @dattymavis

@dattymavis and I ventured over to AMD’s “AREA 64″ with a newly minted AMD TWKR CPU to give it a testdrive under some extreme Ln2, and what ensued was pure overclocking awesomeness!

First, let me introduce to you the AMD TWKR:

AMD created a small number of limited edition AMD Phenom^TM II TWKR Black Edition processors expressly for the purpose of commemorating the record performance feats with the AMD platform technology codenamed “Dragon” and AMD Phenom^TM II processors. These processors are designed to reach the utmost performance barriers of the AMD Phenom II processor and operate beyond the specifications of typical production level processors.

Called the AMD Phenom^TM II X4 42 Black Edition TWKR processor, it is not currently for sale, and not covered by AMD’s product warranty. This processor is provided “as is” and AMD disclaims any and all liable for any damages, of any type or character (including without limitation, system damage, loss of data or personal injury), caused as a result of or in connection with the use of this processor. 

These processors demonstrate the sound engineering and superior process technology that is in each AMD Phenom II processor.

With our TWKR in hand and a solid warning from our buildings management staff, we headed across Austin to AMD’s Secret Lab – AREA 64.

The lab is fully stocked with all the hardware an overclocker could ever imagine or dream of, shopping made easy! Did I mention the 9,000 gallon Liquid Nitrogen tank outside with direct piping into the AREA 64 lab, yup, doesn’t get much better than that!

The motherboard of choice was a Gigabyte 790X.

4G of Corsair memory,

An ATI Radeon^TM HD 4870 X2 GPU.

And a TWKR CPU.

Hmmm, why is it not posting???

After 20 minutes of no posting at all, we finally realized that the DIMMS had been previously whacked and were no good… Step 1: Always make sure you have working hardware!

Once we had working hardware, we fired it up and started the “slow pour” of Ln2.

The steps we followed are detailed in this blog.

Ln2 engaged! First thermos of Ln2 got us to -120C, time for thermos #2.  The second pour brought us down to -139C!  Time for more!

The third thermos of Ln2 brought our TWKR part down to -186.6C – Ah, overclocking bliss!

At this point in time, I let @dattymavis take over as he is the obvious safer one between the two of us…

@dattymavis jokingly dons full protective gear and looks like something out of an alien movie…

Now time to see what this badboy can do!  We pushed the proc to a single core overclock of 6.42Ghz at a voltage of 1.725volts.  This was accomplished just having Windows at idle.  We will leave it up to the professional overclockers to push the proc’s with a heavy workload.

As for a 4-core OC, we achieved 6.2Ghz at 1.8 volts.  Again, this was at a temp of -182F with a light workload.

All in all, we achieved significant frequency for a couple of hacks with unlimited Ln2.

The TWKR is not currently for sale, but is designed to make a statement to the OC community: Thank you to each and every enthusiast who continues to support AMD and fights the good fight!

Ah, the sweat smell of Ln2…

If I’m lucky, I may be able to give away some of the TWKR processors via Twitter in the coming weeks.  I’m not making any promises, but follow me if you are on Twitter and you just might be lucky enough to become a proud owner of a TWKR yourself someday.

Also follow @AMDDesktop…they have some goodies for the community too!

Cheers!

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Ian McNaughton is senior manager of advanced marketing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.