[H]ardOCP have a new article out entitled Overclocking the Prescott 2.4A! So what's so special about this cpu, well it's called a Prescott Pentium with a 533MHz Quad Pumped FSB and no HyperThreading! Here's a snip.
One very important issue that can be confusing needs to be mentioned here. The Prescott 2.4A is not the same as the previous ?2.4A? Northwood CPU that is still for sale in retail channels. Should you decide to buy a 2.4A and want the same spec CPU that is used for this article, you will want to purchase a CPU that is the SL7E8 specification. As of writing this, the SL7E8 is the only Prescott core 2.4A available. Looking at the above box label from a Prescott 2.4A retail package you can see the S Spec # noted at the end of the Product Code. We have changed the color of the SL# so that it will stand out to you. This is a quick and easy way to check any CPU made by Intel as the S Spec # is engraved onto the Pentium 4 CPU heatspreader as well.
On this CPU you will see noted that it is an Intel processor of the Pentium 4 family. This CPU is guaranteed to operate at 2.4GHz (18*133), has 1MB of L2 cache, and uses a 533MHz FSB (133*4). The multiplier for this CPU is ?18? and is locked as are other Intel Pentium 4 CPUs. This means that we cannot change the multiplier like is easily done on many AMD CPUs. This barrier, mainly put in place to discourage the remarking and fraudulent selling of those CPUs, forces us to use the modification of the Front Side Bus along with core voltage tweaks in order to overclock our CPU.
Overclocking the Prescott 2.4A
One very important issue that can be confusing needs to be mentioned here. The Prescott 2.4A is not the same as the previous ?2.4A? Northwood CPU that is still for sale in retail channels. Should you decide to buy a 2.4A and want the same spec CPU that is used for this article, you will want to purchase a CPU that is the SL7E8 specification. As of writing this, the SL7E8 is the only Prescott core 2.4A available. Looking at the above box label from a Prescott 2.4A retail package you can see the S Spec # noted at the end of the Product Code. We have changed the color of the SL# so that it will stand out to you. This is a quick and easy way to check any CPU made by Intel as the S Spec # is engraved onto the Pentium 4 CPU heatspreader as well.
On this CPU you will see noted that it is an Intel processor of the Pentium 4 family. This CPU is guaranteed to operate at 2.4GHz (18*133), has 1MB of L2 cache, and uses a 533MHz FSB (133*4). The multiplier for this CPU is ?18? and is locked as are other Intel Pentium 4 CPUs. This means that we cannot change the multiplier like is easily done on many AMD CPUs. This barrier, mainly put in place to discourage the remarking and fraudulent selling of those CPUs, forces us to use the modification of the Front Side Bus along with core voltage tweaks in order to overclock our CPU.
Overclocking the Prescott 2.4A
