Reports are surfacing on the net that AMD may be making a special version of its FX-8350, codenamed “Centurion”, that can run on air cooling at 5GHz.
The last time AMD made a special “just for overclockers” chip was in 2009, with a binned Phenom II Black Edition quad-core processor, called the “TWKR 42” (pronounced Tweaker). It was a low-clocked Phenom II but it was picked out of AMD’s factory rolling out Deneb revision C2 processors. The TWKR 42 chips were so highly prized and so perfect, they couldn’t be sold in the retail market. AMD let them loose as prizes for overclocking competitions and in the hands of reviewers as a publicity stunt.
The TWKR 42 processors were capable of running at 4GHz on just air cooling with some minor tweaking. While many other Phenom II quad-cores around the world were capable of the same thing, it was the luck of the draw if you got one that didn’t require a lot of binning on your part or wasting a lot of money.
The rumored FX processor to get the same treatment is codenamed Centurion. According to sources close to Hexus, who first broke the news, the Centurion FX processor would be able to achieve 5GHz on air cooling and would be selected from bins that AMD does in-house to determine which octo-core Vishera processor becomes the FX-8350, or the FX-8320 or the FX-8300.
The same source also told Hexus that it would be available to consumers and overclockers for only $795 (approximately R7200 at the current exchange rate) and would be cherry-picked just like the TWKR 42 to perform at the highest levels under air, water or liquid hydrogen cooling.
Its a steep price for a FX processor but this will be of particular interest to overclockers, who usually buy and sell chips while searching for the one that performs the best.
Source: Hexus.net
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