Locked Out. An Editorial on the business of locking processors.

MediaMan · December 2003

"Then again what of the scuttlebutt of locking some processors and not locking others? Again this doesn’t matter to the average consumer who buys based on a budget. Here lies the root of, perhaps, where overclocking came from. PC buyers are on a budget and often they can’t or do not want to pay for the top of the line processor but overclocking provided a performance boost without the cost. Could it be so devious of AMD to have a plan in place to herd the enthusiast towards the slaughterhouse of higher priced processors?"

Does locking multipliers affect you? Read on for another perspective.

Thrax · December 2003

How'd I know that you'd quote the scuttlebutt paragraph?

Good article.

csimon · December 2003

very good article there MM ...this paragraph reminded me of folding@home.

The PC doesn’t use its brain, the processor, all of the time either. Typing a document in Word may tax 2 or 3 percent of the processor leaving the other 97-98% twiddling its digital thumbs. Sending email may produce a usage spike of up to 10 to 20 percent which disappears as suddenly as it appeared. Surfing the Internet may put a “horrific” strain of 30 percent on a processor. This usage changes, of course, between specific software and speed of processor but it is safe to say that the daily tasks involved in using a computer do not overload the average processor. It’s only most noticeable when it comes to the time taken to load a program or playing certain games. So why the need to go ever faster when a product, a few steps down from the top, will more than serve the purpose?

Did you know that folding@home is also helping find a cure for mad cow and parkinsons disease?

Enverex · December 2003

When you use wierd terms, you really should put the meaning in brackets.....

Leonardo · December 2003

Well done, Doug. You've distilled the salient points of the state-of-microprocessor-business into a concise, digestible article.

muddocktor · December 2003

Good article Doug, except that I will take exception to your statement that some other way will be found to unlock processors. If AMD has started locking the multipliers like Intel has, then there is no way that the multi will ever be unlocked again. There most probably will be other ways to overclock the procs, through the use of more advanced technology on the motherboard side allowing the use of extremely high(compared to nowdays) frontside bus speeds, but not through the multiplier.

mmonnin · December 2003

Good article. YGPM

GHoosdum · December 2003

Great content. But please oh please oh please change the quote lines to be horizontal rule or something else, it breaks the flow of my reading when there's a big quote from later in the story between paragraphs. (I hate it when magazines do this also)