Legit Reviews

anyone know why CPUs still don't operate above stock clocks of 3.4GHz? i mean, i have had a Pentium 4 3GHz chip for over 5 years now, and yeah now we have quad cores and soon-to-be six-core CPUs with beefy FSB's but all these chips are known to break 4GHz on stock cooling easily, why not default them to that? i'm just curious why Intel tops out at 3.33GHz and AMD at 3.4GHz for flagship Processors for "extreme" enthusiast usage.

A number of factors cause them to stop there...

power consumption, heat, yields, cost and the fact that they are adding more cores now... We have seen true physical cores go from 1 -> 2 - > 3 -> 4 - 6 on desktop processors in less than a decade. Why go faster, hotter and more expensive when you can just run software that is able to handle multiple threads? Remember system builders also have keep prices in check so heat is a major issue. All chassis have to be tests and then the cost of the cooler is also a big deal as many ODM cases are funky to say the least.

Sure you had a Pentium chip that ran 3GHz five years ago, but in a few months you'll be able to own a chip that is 6 physical cores with 12 logical threads that runs above 3GHz.

The barrier is also there to leave plenty of overclocking room for the enthusiasts.

ibleet wrote:The barrier is also there to leave plenty of overclocking room for the enthusiasts.

I wish that was true