AMD Shows Off Phenom II Processor’s Headroom, By Overclocking to 5GHz

From AMD’s upcoming chip roadmaps we know the Phenom II is due out early next year, and it’s AMD’s second 45nm chip, but in a recent show and tell session AMD demonstrated the “overhead” built into the chip by overclocking one to a crazy 5GHz. It did take a special CO2 sublimation cooling unit that carries the danger of suffocating you if you use it in a small room, but what the hey. With a liquid nitrogen cooling system the chip was easily pushed way over 5 gigs. You may think “yeah, I could overclock anything with that stuff!” but it should be noted that with fairly normal high-end air-cooling the chips could get up to 4GHz. It’ll be interesting to watch AMD’s battle with Intel’s i7 play out. [PCPerspective]