DailyTech - AMD Gives Away Phenom II X4 TWKR CPUs to Overclockers

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Hardware AMD Gives Away Phenom II X4 TWKR CPUs to Overclockers
Jansen Ng (Blog) - June 30, 2009 9:59 AM

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35 comment(s) - last by atlmann10.. on Jul 10 at 1:05 PM

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Less than 100 available to a select few

Rumors have been rampant recently about a new CPU from AMD that would reach amazingly high clock speeds and challenge Intel's Core i7 supremacy. The truth is a bit more subdued.

Every semiconductor manufacturing process can be improved over time to reduce defects and increase performance of the parts produced. This is how Intel and AMD are able to release CPUs with higher clock speeds several months after transitioning to a new process. There are always a few parts that do not perform as well as expected. These chips are speed binned and sold at lower price points and clock speeds rather than tossing them away.

However, there are a rare few that perform better than expected. AMD has collected the best chips from the Phenom II production line, and will be throwing them into the wild. The AMD Phenom II X4 42 Black Edition TWKR processor is a limited-edition chip created to showcase extreme overclocking with AMD's best. Fewer than 100 processors have been hand-picked and will be given away to elite overclockers. A few will also be given away in contests.

"AMD is giving these parts to select members of the extreme overclocking community as a tribute for their support and to encourage them to push the limits of overclocking," stated the company in an email.

TWKR apparently stands for "Those Who Know", with the "R" added in to make it sound like "tweaker".

The TWKR parts could break the 7GHz barrier using liquid helium, which can go down as low as -270 degrees Celsius. AMD says that they can "can handle more voltage, scale higher, and run faster than other processors on the market".

The best Phenom II parts available right now are the AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition chips, built on a 45nm Silicon-On-Insulator process and shipping at 3.2 GHz. These chips run on AM3 boards in order to take advantage of DDR3.

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Oh, man!!

By marvdmartian on 6/30/2009 10:20:22 AM , Rating: 3

And to think, I just got rid of my liquid helium rig last week! (roll eyes)

Honestly, though, sounds like a cool deal for those lucky enough to partake. Wonder if they'd be willing to give one to NASA, to use in a space probe? I'd imagine that a cooling system that uses a radiator cooled by the ultra low temps of deep space could obtain some freaky overclocking numbers!!

RE: Oh, man!!

By CZroe on 6/30/09, Rating: -1

RE: Oh, man!!

By freaqie on 6/30/2009 11:17:19 AM , Rating: 4

no in space the only way of getting rid of heat is radiation.
so surface area does affect it.
the more area the more you send out. the tricky bit is that you can;t have overlapping surface area, (else it radiates off and hits the cooler again)

there is no heat conduction nor is their air to pass the warmth too, but there is still heat radiation.

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RE: Oh, man!!

By phazers on 6/30/2009 11:21:10 AM , Rating: 5

quote:
Heat doesn't just transmit like light/RF. How do you transfer heat into nothing?

Elementary, my dear Watson :). Anything warmer than ambient temperature in space (2-4 degrees Kelvin for interstellar space) will emit a net amount of EM radiation according to the black body effect. So for something around 50 degrees Centigrade, most of the radiation emitted is in the infrared region.

Since there is a net emission of energy, the radiating body will cool down until the net emission becomes zero - in other words, it absorbs and emits equal amounts of radiation...

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RE: Oh, man!!

By cocoviper on 6/30/2009 12:51:33 PM , Rating: 2

Wouldn't be ideal for space regardless of cooling- electronics that leave earth need to be hardened to withstand the extreme radiation and RF conditions in space.

This is still a consumer grade processor and even if it's running at -100 degrees if you expose it to 10-100x the level of radiation/RF energy it would see on earth then it will crash at best or likely just die.

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RE: Oh, man!!

By UNHchabo on 6/30/2009 1:33:39 PM , Rating: 2

One of my college professors was really big into the Mars Rover missions because of the AI involved; he told us that NASA uses really old processors on their equipment that goes into space, because the modern manufacturing processes are too small to be immune from the radiation they encounter in space. Most CPUs sold today are 45 nanometers, and he said NASA's CPUs are on the order of 0.5 micro meters.

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RE: Oh, man!!

By taber on 6/30/2009 8:10:24 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
0.5 micro meters

That's the same thing as 500 nano meters. No reason to complicate numbers with different units.

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RE: Oh, man!!

By MrPoletski on 7/1/2009 7:08:18 AM , Rating: 2

miCRONS *cough*

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BZZZZZZZT!!

By MrPoletski on 6/30/2009 11:35:16 AM , Rating: 4

quote:
The TWKR parts could break the 7GHz barrier using liquid helium, which can go down as low as -270 degrees Celsius.

Helium 4 (normal helium) has a boiling point of 4.2K, or -268.95C.

You need SERIOUS equipment to achieve this. I guarantee there is not a tweaker on this planet planning to overclock anything that has a means of maintaining a temperature of 4.2K or below. You couldn't even use it from compressed bottles, the moment you try and pour it into your cascade, it will vapourise. By the time you've vapourised enough helium to get the ambient down to stop this happening you've frozen everything else around you, including yourself. Not to mention your voice would start to sound like the late michael jackson with an axe embedded in his nuts.

But hey, how about going all the way down to 2.17K and have the helium go superfluid! That way you wont even need to pour it out the container into your cascade, the helium will empty itself.

RE: BZZZZZZZT!!

By smackababy on 6/30/2009 11:42:41 AM , Rating: 2

I believe if you pressurize it you can raise the boiling point a great deal. So, a pressurized, closed, system could be maybe even double the heat of the original boiling point!

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RE: BZZZZZZZT!!

By SilthDraeth on 6/30/2009 12:25:42 PM , Rating: 2

People have used liquid helium cooling rigs. Search for it...

Or since you are probably to lazy to do so, here is the article.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reports...

Granted, this isn't in some guy's basement, but it has been, and can be done.

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RE: BZZZZZZZT!!

By MrPoletski on 7/1/2009 7:05:37 AM , Rating: 2

That's not a cooling rig, thats a cooling laboratory and the event was held by AMD.

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RE: BZZZZZZZT!!

By codeThug on 6/30/2009 11:55:28 PM , Rating: 3

Liquid helium is ghey.

I use sub-space interference cooling and can get around -75 Kelvin.

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RE: BZZZZZZZT!!

By Planck on 7/2/2009 12:06:01 PM , Rating: 2

As per the the law of energy conservation you can not cool anything below absolute zero ie. 0 degrees Kelvin

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RE: BZZZZZZZT!!

By Sazabi19 on 7/1/2009 9:04:06 AM , Rating: 2

It's called Phase Change (changing from gas to liquid and vice-versa), look it up, very....VERY EFFICIENT way of cooling, if you have the money. www.bio-hazardpc.com the nuclear winter rig uses phase change and can provide a little bit of info for you. Also look off of google or some other site to query how to make a phase-change loop. I would not suggest it for anyone that doesnt want to spend plenty of money or is skiddish about welding/securing a high pressure loop with possible leaks of flammible liquid/gas. It's not something the average joe has for a reason. Other than being dangerous in general (if not professionaly made) it is VERY heavy (usually 50+ lbs) and quite bulky as well, not to mention the cost of the gas that you are putting into the loop (different gasses cool better than some, propane being the least expensive but also possibly most flamible).

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This actually is bad

By TA152H on 6/30/2009 11:57:43 AM , Rating: 1

Any company that hand picks units makes it sound positive. What this really means though, is the units below it no longer get these hand picked units, so now your chances of getting something exceptional are smaller.

This is only 100 units, so it's not a huge deal since you probably wouldn't get it anyway, but when I see memory makers that use hand-picked units for their super expensive stuff, it makes me less likely to buy their stuff, if I were really looking for something underneath it. The chance of getting something exceptional has been essentially eliminated.

RE: This actually is bad

By teflonbilly on 6/30/2009 1:27:37 PM , Rating: 2

I don't think binning is bad. It would still be a lottery to get the high clocking parts. This way (well maybe not in this particular case) you can choose to pay a little more to get a guaranteed higher clocked part, rather than hope that you got one. I prefer the idea of knowing what I am buying than paying the price and then testing to see. Maybe I got a good part, or maybe I got the dud.

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RE: This actually is bad

By PrinceGaz on 6/30/2009 1:31:54 PM , Rating: 2

I agree 100%. It's the graphics-card manufacturers that are the worst for this though, where they have a standard model and a more expensive but otherwise identical overclocked one that is guaranteed to run at a certain higher speed.

Unless you're prepared to pay the premium for the OC model from them, you may as well get a card from a manufacturer that doesn't do an OC model because then you have a chance of getting a good one or a not so good one, whereas buying the standard one from a company that does OC versions pretty much guarantees that you'll get a not so good one.

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RE: This actually is bad

By mindless1 on 7/2/2009 2:35:08 AM , Rating: 2

Except that's not really true. With the o'c cards they might use a bit better memory but all they need do otherwise is make sure it wears a good heatsink and crank the core voltage up a bit... the same as you could do with any of them providing they have equal quality power supply subcircuits. For the most part binning has become more of an urban legend than a reality with video cards.

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TWKR reviewed

By crystal clear on 6/30/2009 2:41:19 PM , Rating: 2

TWKR edition processors put to test-

AMD Phenom II 42 TWKR Black Edition Processor

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1009/1/

RE: TWKR reviewed

By akia1978 on 6/30/2009 2:51:19 PM , Rating: 3

A couple of more reviews I found, intresting results to say the least :)

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/amd_twkr_e...

http://hothardware.com/articles/AMD-Phenom-II-Blac...

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ROFLMAOBBQ

By Spivonious on 6/30/2009 10:26:57 AM , Rating: 2

TWKR apparently stands for "Those Who Know", with the "R" added in to make it sound like "tweaker".

RE: ROFLMAOBBQ

By CZroe on 6/30/2009 11:04:22 AM , Rating: 2

Many will think it's a drug reference.

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What about the AMD Phenom II 965?

By DEredita on 6/30/2009 10:30:44 AM , Rating: 2

I was hoping to see some info about the new upcoming AMD Phenom II 965, which is due out any day now.

Specs are said to be 3.4GHz, Black Edition, quad-core 125W, etc etc....

RE: What about the AMD Phenom II 965?

By Clauzii on 6/30/2009 12:57:25 PM , Rating: 2

Yes (seems like it showed up in EU first?

http://www.asrock.com/support/cpu.asp?s=AM3

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Cuban cigars or processors

By crystal clear on 6/30/09, Rating: 0

RE: Cuban cigars or processors

By killerroach on 6/30/2009 11:13:12 AM , Rating: 4

The difference is that the former you smoke deliberately, and supposedly makes you look sophisticated and highbrow.

If you smoke the latter, you did something wrong, and those in the know will probably get a good laugh out of your incompetence.

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RE: Cuban cigars or processors

By crystal clear on 6/30/09, Rating: 0

the irony

By Baov on 6/30/2009 10:47:39 AM , Rating: 2

So AMD is on a clock war now?

7 Ghz barrier?

By 91TTZ on 6/30/2009 12:40:27 PM , Rating: 2

What 7 Ghz barrier? There is no known barrier that exists at 7 Ghz.

By johnsonx on 6/30/2009 10:25:02 PM , Rating: 2

Millions of years after Deep Thought answered the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything, and dozens of years after the Earth was destroyed by the Vogon Constructor Fleet, then rebuilt again by the Magratheans, we finally have The Question itself! (the question to which the answer is 42, of course) Wait... AMD Phenom II TWKR Edition isn't a question. Ok, nevermind, we're back to the drawing board... what were the other ideas again? How many roads must a man walk down? What's 6 times 9? Argghhh!

So what?

By Belard on 7/1/2009 2:18:30 AM , Rating: 2

Really... its supposed to compete against the i7?

It doesn't matter if it can do 5~7Ghz as the big difference is that:
(A) i7s are commercially available at $300 and up.
(B) Doesn't require specialized hardware to operate.
(C) The i7 can be used like a normal computer, every day. 24/7, play games and look at internet porn.

Now, if the AMD TWEKR can making looking at porn 100,000 times faster, then these guys would have something to talk about.

AMD Loyalty

By atlmann10 on 7/10/2009 1:05:23 PM , Rating: 2

I contacted AMD on the CPU's, of course they (or the rep I have talked with) "Have no information to give". I actually use two X2 processors in my desktops, and have also built many systems for family, friends, and paying customers using an AMD platform. From a cost performance stand point for many years I judged them the best.

However; consumer loyalty etc. seems to be worth nothing to AMD. I was inquiring about buying or any information I could get on it as a consumer. It seems that to AMD loyalty meens nothing though, so not only will they give me no info on getting one of these, They won't even give me any details much less let me get one.