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AMD sets Guinness World Record with overclocked FX CPU

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On September 13, 2011, 1:00 PM EST With Video

AMD earned the Guinness World Record for the highest frequency of a microprocessor at a recent invite-only event in Austin, Texas. The team of elite overclockers and AMD staff was able to take an eight-core Bulldozer FX CPU up to a staggering 8.429GHz, surpassing the previous record of 8.308GHz.

The tech event took place about two weeks ago but due to nondisclosure agreements, media isn’t allowed to speak about everything that took place just yet, says Anandtech. Details regarding the overclocking potential of the new platform, however, are finally able to see the light of day.

AMD had three stations on hand to demonstrate varying levels of overclocking. The first station used a closed loop water cooling kit from Antec which was able to push a hexa-core CPU up to 4.8GHz. A phase change cooler was installed at the next station and took another FX CPU to 5.894GHz using 1.632 volts. Liquid helium was needed to shatter the world record. It's worth noting that no benchmarks were run and that CPU-Z was used to verify clock speeds.

Hot Hardware was on hand for the event and claims that the CPUs used for testing were early AMD FX-8150 processors, and that only two of the eight cores were enabled for the record-setting run. 

“We applaud AMD for their entry into Guinness World Records for achieving the Highest Frequency of a Computer Processor,” said Guinness World Records' Freddie Hoff, who is presenting the award today at the AMD Fusion Zone, a technology showcase in San Francisco, Calif. “We congratulate everyone involved in this record-breaking achievement.”

Today's award ceremony takes place just blocks from the Intel Developer Forum, which runs from September 13 to 15.

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User Comments (22)

Post a comment
TomSEA
on September 13, 2011
1:10 PM

Amazing that even with all that cooling, the CPU was still running at 230 degrees during the o/c.

Reply

1977TA
on September 13, 2011
1:20 PM

That's pretty impressive! Would be sweet to see how that thing ran benchmarks.

Reply

stan4
on September 13, 2011
1:38 PM

LOL Tom, it was running at under -200

Reply

SammyJames
on September 13, 2011
1:46 PM

Wow is right! As soon as I get my liquid nitrogen, I'll be able to run my new AMD FX Bulldozer octocore at 8 GHz -- for 30 seconds -- long enough to complete an entire bank of orchestral sounds, supplied by VSL and Omnisphere!

Yay!

(In case you have no idea of what I'm talking about, I routinely run into problems with latency. My computer is set up to run DAW software. What I'm trying to do is a lot like what gamers are trying to do on their desktops, except that the realtime stuff that I'm trying to achieve happens with audio instead of video.)

Anyway, seriously -- I am impressed. AMD might have gotten my business, assuming that I can still get a 95w TDP processor -- even if it is running 8 cores, say, at 3.0 GHz or so.

That would make me happy.

Reply

Archean
on September 13, 2011
1:55 PM

Only two cores for the record? I wonder what will be temps and actual potential of OC on these CPUs. I guess with all cores enabled the speed will be much lower?

Reply

Nima304
on September 13, 2011
2:10 PM

Archean said:

Only two cores for the record? I wonder what will be temps and actual potential of OC on these CPUs. I guess with all cores enabled the speed will be much lower?

Not sure about that, but it'd definitely run a lot hotter.

Reply

SKYSTAR
on September 13, 2011
2:19 PM

oh man 8.429GHz that's unbelievable

Reply

Win7Dev
on September 13, 2011
2:28 PM

I couldn't find this on techspot, but what would happen if you did some overclocking on this beast.

[link]

Reply

Route44
on September 13, 2011
2:30 PM

What is also interesting is that it is reported that they have reached 5.0 GHz on air.

Reply

LinkedKube
on September 13, 2011
3:55 PM

Yeah, but can it run Crysis.

Reply

Guest
on September 13, 2011
5:03 PM

the real question is can it run metro 2033.

Reply

LinkedKube
on September 13, 2011
5:34 PM

These WR's were cool about 4-5 years ago. Not so exciting anymore. GG to amd though. At least they're making records somewhere.

Reply

Mizzou
on September 13, 2011
5:50 PM

... I wonder what will be temps and actual potential of OC on these CPUs. I guess with all cores enabled the speed will be much lower?

Good question. If the 8150P can do 4.5GHz stable (or better) at rational voltages I'll be tempted to go ahead and pull the trigger.

Reply

Leeky
on September 13, 2011
7:33 PM

supersmashbrada said:

These WR's were cool about 4-5 years ago. Not so exciting anymore. GG to amd though. At least they're making records somewhere.

Its nearly as good as the record breaking delays we're all experiencing!

Reply

dividebyzero
on September 13, 2011
8:28 PM

Its nearly as good as the record breaking delays we're all experiencing!

Thats why BD is late to market. AMD have been hand testing each one to find the golden chip.

If you're like me, you probably figure a HWBot suicide run more than compensates for no retail availability.

And on a marketing note...

AMD claiming 5GHz with sub-$100 cooling might be backing themselves into a corner unless retail BD can more often than not attain that frequency with all cores active.

2.016v...ye gods! that CPU is pumping out more heat than most performance grade graphics cards.

Reply

red1776
on September 13, 2011
8:43 PM

2.016v...ye gods! that CPU is pumping out more heat than most performance grade graphics cards.

I wonder what the ability to pump that much through it means

I don't know why everyone is getting jacked up about 5.0 Ghz for. As I understand the architecture, this is supposed to be ' netburst done correctly' I believe high frequency is just part of the chips design. 5+Ghz may be great, or it may mean nothing in comparison to a known performance (Intel)

Reply

dividebyzero
on September 13, 2011
9:15 PM

Stop being coy there G. We all know that OC'ing the bejeezus out of a CPU features highly on many CPU reviews....so it must be important,...right?

Will be interesting to see how 1.performance scales with clock increase, and 2. what kind of variability there is in the CPU's. Review samples are bound to be hand picked, so the enthusiast forums are going to be invaluble in ascertaining actual potential ( clock and voltage).

I wonder what the ability to pump that much through it means

Here's a comparison: 1.92v on Gulftown @ 7195M. ( note six cores w/HT !)

Reply

yorro
on September 13, 2011
9:53 PM

Damn, thats Liquid Helium

Reply

red1776
on September 13, 2011
11:01 PM

Stop being coy there G. We all know that OC'ing the bejeezus out of a CPU features highly on many CPU reviews....so it must be important,...right?

Will be interesting to see how 1.performance scales with clock increase, and 2. what kind of variability there is in the CPU's. Review samples are bound to be hand picked, so the enthusiast forums are going to be invaluble in ascertaining actual potential ( clock and voltage).

Here's a comparison: 1.92v on Gulftown @ 7195M. ( note six cores w/HT !)

I am going to make a prediction about BD...and remember you heard it here first :P

I bet that the scaling with clock increase is going to be very "plateau" like. I think all of these refined and very complicated branch predictors...etc... are going to need a minimum frequency at or above which they will work splendidly, and below will fall off very quickly. Kind of the CPU version of turbo lag. there...hows that for complete blind speculation??

Review samples are bound to be hand picked, so the enthusiast forums are going to be invaluble in ascertaining actual potential ( clock and voltage).

oh yeah, the NDA lid coming off BD is going to be something to behold

I just decided that i am getting one a while back. I am intrigued by the architecture. I do think that it will hit it's stride in the second incarnation (and by incarnation I mean release not stepping)

Reply

Guest
on September 14, 2011
12:31 PM

But the question is, will it run crysis?

Reply

Guest
on September 14, 2011
1:29 PM

Ive been running my 2.66GHz i7 @ 4GHz for over a year on water cooling so oc systems can do more than break records When it dies (which it will) ill deff buy one of these, water cool that, oc the hell outa it and see how long it lives - awesome fun, gz AMD!

Reply

Guest
on September 20, 2011
8:04 AM

These WR attempts are the only things that give me hope that technology is still advancing fast these days... I wanna see some sci-fi **** before I die!

Reply

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