Overclocker Andre Yang managed to crank up the speed of AMD's "Bulldozer" processor to 8.46151 GHz just a few days ago. Now AnandTech reports that Yang has broken his own record using the same AMD FX-8150 processor. The new, but still unofficial, overclocking speed record is now 8.5848 GHz.
Once again Yang used a lot of of liquid nitrogen to help achieve this feat, which pretty much blows away his previous high clock speed number. Apparently Yang raised the core voltage up to 2.076V on the chip to help achieve the new record. As we reported previously, Yang shut down six of the processor's eight cores to lower the chip's heat and thus allow for it to reach the ultra-high clock speed the last time and it's likely he did the same for the new high speed record.
The story points out that Yang could, in theory, achieve even faster PC processors speeds if he used liquid helium instead of liquid nitrogen in his efforts. The reason is that helium has a lower temperature when it liquefies at -269 Celsius; Nitrogen does the same at a relatively balmy -196 Celsius.
So what if Yang, or perhaps another overclocker with some time and technique on his or her hands, decide to get some liquid helium and put it on an AMD Bulldozer-based chip to cool it down? Could we see someone achieve the next milestone and break the 9 Ghz barrier? It's looking like it's more than possible than this stage.
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