This site is dedicated to providing ideas for 'Overclockers' throughout the Internet Community.

'Overclocking' is the art of making a PC processor run above it's manufacturer's rated speed. Most CPU manufacturers produce CPU cores all on the same process and rate their speed on either production quality or market demand. In the case of Intel®, we have found that they rate more on market demand rather than production quality, and until recently with the introduction of the Athlon™ and Duron™, AMD® based their ratings on production quality. Intel® started 'locking' the speed multiplier for just this reason, in an attempt to prevent enthusiasts from acquiring the actual speed it was capable of, for a price less than the units they had locked at a higher rate. AMD® has been a little more tolerant as the core of their business has been for that exact enthusiast. We now utilize the process of 'overclocking' the FSB (front side bus) to increase the processor core speed.

The art of 'Thermal Acceleration' is making the PC processor run at speeds equal to and obove the highest rated speed available. The process used to make today's CPUs is known as CMOS, Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. One of the characteristics of semiconductors made with this process is that they tend to become more efficient as we lower their operating temperature. We will attempt to explain:

Thermal Acceleration means 'Overclocking'

• Increased electron and hole mobilities,
• Higher conductivity of aluminum and copper interconnects,
• the Laws of Physics.

At lower temperatures, the performance advantage afforded by cooling is even more pronounced. Standard CMOS devices double in performance at approximately -120°C.

It is possible to achieve higher levels of performance -- above and beyond the performance vs. temperature relationship shown above -- by optimizing the CMOS fabrication process. Minor and relatively straightforward modifications in the semiconductor "doping" process are required. This is many orders of magnitude less expensive than building a next generation semiconductor fab -- and in fact complements and extends such capital investment. Semiconductor companies are well aware of this, and are poised to take advantange of it when the cooling infrastructure is fully primed.

Even greater performance can be achieved by optimizing the CMOS design itself for operation within a well defined range of low temperatures. Industry pioneers including Dr. Gene Amdahl and others have been researching low temperature design methods for years. This creates entirely new degrees of freedom for semiconductor designers who are constantly looking for new ways to extend Moore's Law.

As sub-ambient active cooling becomes a mainstream technique for CMOS thermal management and performance optimization, it will be logical to get colder and to optimize semiconductor fabrication and design methodologies accordingly.

Each of the projects undertaken on this site have been with Intel® processor only because they a SMP capable. We decided early on, that each project would be a real working computer system rather than a bare bones unit run just long enough to produce test results.  The test system configuration can be seen here. Each project was run at least 240hrs continuous, working both processors at 100% load, in a mutli-tasking environment. On with the projects:

The Complete System
Air Cooled - Peltier Assist
Water Cooled - Peltier Assist
Phase Change - Peltier Assist
Project Tiger 133™
Tiger 133™ Modifications
Build Your Own Copper Exchanger
Reaching 1.2Ghz
Phase Change Basics
Water Block Basics