Overclocking the Athlon

The overclocking situation

In our Athlon 700 review, we briefly discussed the overclocking situation and just how difficult it is to physically overclock an Athlon processor. While the Athlon itself is a wonderful processor for overclocking - with many users overclocking their 500 MHz Athlons to 700 and 750 MHz - the process requires more technical skills than the average Athlon user possess.

Many of you mailed us with information related to various overclocking techniques and exploits. Besides the soldering resistors method mentioned in the Athlon 700 review, another option is to remove the resistors entirely and solder wires from the resistor junction directly to DIP switches. With this method changing settings is a bit easier, as you set the CPU parameters with the DIP switches rather than having to solder resistors each time you want to try a new setting. However, the tangled web of wires left by this method leaves the CPU in a hairy position each time you place your hands near your overclocked Athlon.

If you're hesitant to attempt this, many companies will perform this operation for you. In fact, some online vendors sell Athlon processors and systems with the modifications in place and the CPU ready to go!

If both of these methods sound a bit too extreme to you, you're not alone. While we were tempted to warm up the soldering iron and tear open the case on one of our Athlons, we just couldn't justify the performance gain versus damaging such an expensive investment. With that in mind, AMD offers another unpublicized solution.

Golden fingers to the rescue!

If you pop off the case of your Athlon, you'll notice an edge connector on the top right side of the Athlon cartridge. With this connector you can attach a printed circuit board mounted with DIP switches (or any other similar device to manipulate CPU settings such as dials or knobs) and the resistors you'll need to overclock the Athlon. These overclocking cards are commonly referred to as "Golden Fingers" devices. Once you've removed the casing from your Athlon, simply attach the overclocking card to the connector on the Athlon cartridge.

This technique is the safest for your CPU, as it requires no soldering resistors on your brand new Athlon or dangling wires that can easily come loose. While this method doesn't allow the manipulation of L2 cache settings, (successful overclocks above 750MHz frequently require slowing down the L2 cache) with the overclocking device in place you can change the CPU's voltage and multiplier without touching a single soldering iron.

Golden Fingers Device from Trinity Micro

For manipulating the L2 cache speed, it's rumored that an upcoming software program will allow you to do just that. Designed by H.Oda, (the same person who brought the hardware world SoftFSB and WCPUID) this upcoming program would be required software for any prospective Athlon overclocker if it were released.