Importantly: AMD still lacks *internal* critical temp capability, relying on the external motherboard monitoring has too much latency to be reliable protection before rapid damage.
AMD chips also run at 100% all the time because of poor motherboard support of the "Stop Grant" mode. Some tools will let you re-enable Stop Grant mode (VCool, etc.) on AMD chips, and the temp drops dramatically (10-15' C or more). However, on most machines it tends to make things unstable and the machine prone to random freezes. Something about mobo mfgs not really following AMD's guidelines about how to handle flucating power loads while Stop Grant mode is switching off and on. So AMD now recommends mfgs just ignore StopGrant mode, which is a workaround for the stability problem at the expense of running 100% full bore all the time. Which makes AMD chips power hogs and space heaters.
(this constant mismatch finger pointing between AMD and the mobo/chipset/RAM mfgs is one reason I now prefer Intel CPUs with Intel chipsets--being designed together under one roof seems to give less compatibility issues, and I've had much more stable systems since switching away from AMD)
"I think the CPU doesn't have any thermal self-protect features"
same article states it's been in there since the Pentium Pro, and smarter in the P4.
Just FYI, it's all moot anyway, since it's not even warm now.
a non-issue then...(and sadly, the $40 CPU upgrade probably unnecessary)
"Is that still the case? I assumed that was a one-generation thing."
It's been around since the early Athlons and P3s, for sure. And still true today, according to this article:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles/pentium4athlonxpthermalmanagement/index.html
Importantly: AMD still lacks *internal* critical temp capability, relying on the external motherboard monitoring has too much latency to be reliable protection before rapid damage.
AMD chips also run at 100% all the time because of poor motherboard support of the "Stop Grant" mode. Some tools will let you re-enable Stop Grant mode (VCool, etc.) on AMD chips, and the temp drops dramatically (10-15' C or more). However, on most machines it tends to make things unstable and the machine prone to random freezes. Something about mobo mfgs not really following AMD's guidelines about how to handle flucating power loads while Stop Grant mode is switching off and on. So AMD now recommends mfgs just ignore StopGrant mode, which is a workaround for the stability problem at the expense of running 100% full bore all the time. Which makes AMD chips power hogs and space heaters.
(this constant mismatch finger pointing between AMD and the mobo/chipset/RAM mfgs is one reason I now prefer Intel CPUs with Intel chipsets--being designed together under one roof seems to give less compatibility issues, and I've had much more stable systems since switching away from AMD)
"I think the CPU doesn't have any thermal self-protect features"
same article states it's been in there since the Pentium Pro, and smarter in the P4.
Just FYI, it's all moot anyway, since it's not even warm now.
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5393904704265757054
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