AMD shifted to a socketed solution (Socket 462, or Socket A) for its second revision chips, codenamed ?Thunderbird?. It was here that AMD won the speed battle, releasing the first GHz processor and taking serious market share from Intel due to significantly better performance per clock. Socket A would continue to be used until the Athlon 64, something that appealed to upgraders over Intel?s constant socket-switching shenanigans.

Socketed Athlons were multiplier locked by laser etching the CPU itself, with traces being removed from the surface between four sets of contact points, known as the L1 bridges. Amusingly, people reconnected these with a mere pencil, unlocking them once again.

Later locks would involve a trench being burnt into the CPU to mitigate this ? so people simply filled the trench with a non-conductive material and whipped out the old 2B once more.

Dry Ice allows for cheap sub zero cooling for those occasional benchmark sessions, it gives you enough time to experiment with different settings and run a few benchmark to assess the performance you can extract from a setup like this AMD A64 3000+.

With better cooling (LN� , multiple stage phase change cooling) I�m confident this CPU can grab the world overclocking record, as it stands I have to settle for third place Madshrimps.

Without a doubt, the Quad FX CPU we?re most enthusiastic about right now is AMD?s Athlon 64 FX-70. The FX-70 has got all the key specs found in the rest of AMD?s Quad FX lineup, only it runs a little slower at 2.6GHz and most importantly, FX-70 processors can be had for a few bucks over $300. This isn?t a bad price considering the features of the processor (although the equivalent X2 CPU, the X2 5200, is now officially priced at $232), although it?s a shame AMD didn?t shave a few bucks off the FX-70?s price with their latest round of price cuts...at least the FX-70 has the unlocked clock multiplier.

The real upside to 4X4 will be when Barcelona is moved to it, and you have a full 8 cores. The FX70 is available at the following resellers.

ClubIT $304.99 Zipzoomfly $304.99 Newegg $325

Air Cooling Category - In this category, you are allowed to cool the processor with air only by using Scythe CPU Cooler. No special gas, fluid, or other materials are allowed to use.

Important: It is REQUIRED to use the Scythe CPU Cooler in Air Cooling category.

Extreme Cooling Category - In this category, you have no limit!!! You can use gas, dry ice, or anything you want (but please be careful to handle such material and do it on your own risk!) to cool the processor.

Note: It is not mandatory to use the Scythe CPU Cooler in Extreme Cooling category.