Overclocking the FC-PGA Coppermine: Part 2

Now to the really important part, how far did these chips go?  We already knew that the four CPUs that we used in the last comparison made it up to 733MHz and 667MHz for the 550Es and 500Es respectively, but what about with the increased FSB settings offered by an Apollo Pro 133A board?  In order to try our luck once again, we used the same CPUs while adding two more graciously supplied to us by Azzo computers. 

The highest FSB setting available on all of the three Apollo Pro 133A based boards we looked at was the 150MHz setting, so it made sense for us to aim straight for that mark.  At the 150MHz FSB a 500E would theoretically end up running at 750MHz and a 550E would end up running at a comfy 825MHz.  And the results of our overclocking attempt?

At the default core voltage of 1.60v, all of the 500E and 550E CPUs we tried worked perfectly at 750MHz and 825MHz respectively.  And since these tests were run on a platform with official support for the 133MHz FSB, the ½ AGP clock divider allowed the 150MHz FSB to be used without any noticeable sacrifice of stability.  At 825MHz, the 550E instantly becomes the fastest performer from Intel since the Slot-1 Pentium III line currently “only” goes up to 800MHz. 

Even if you’re set on the i820 platform you can expect a similar overclocking potential out of the 500E/550E CPUs.  And if you happen to get a poor yield and it won’t work at 750/825MHz, then the 140MHz and 133MHz FSB settings are always there, and once again, courtesy of the ½ AGP divider, they’ll both be stable regardless of what applications/games you’re running.

The Test