AMD Duron > Reviews (32)

The AMDDuron has to be one of the most overclockable chips out there. As it is factory-fresh, you can't do anything with it; the chip has a locked multiplier, and won't run at a FSB much greater than the standard 100MHz. However, unlocking the chip is simplicity itself, all you need to do is get a very fine pencil or a conductive pen and join up the L1 bridges. Then you're free to dabble with the multiplier as much as you like (or as much as your motherboard will allow you.) And boy, can you overclock it! With adequate cooling and only a little increase in voltage levels, you can easily overclock this baby by 50% or more! Reports abound of people managing to (with a little effort and a lot of fans) get the 650MHz version to well over 1GHz, with only a negligible increase in system temperature! And on top of that, it's cheaper than most other chips of a similar speed, amking it even more economical when you crack the speed up. Now THAT's what overclocking's all about... So, in its favour, it's cheap and you can overclock the nuts off it, and even in a "standard" state it's still a very good competotor at the low-cost end of the processor spectrum. What more could you ask for? Well, the fact that it will only run at the standard FSB speed (or, at least, only a few MHz above it) is a bit of an annoyance, especially for people who like to overclock their whole system, but it's a minor inconvenience to say the least. All in all, a brilliant chip, and one that would make a fine centrepiece for any new system.