Overclocking the Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz to 3.57GHz
IF YOU'VE BEEN paying attention over the last few months, you've no doubt noticed that AMD's latest Athlon 64s trounce Intel's newest Pentium 4s almost across the board. That's a real shame considering that Intel's 900-series chipsets bring so much to the table, including PCI Express, advanced Serial ATA and RAID features, and high-definition audio. There could be hope for Intel fanboys, though. Since the Pentium 4 500 line stretches from 2.8 to 3.6GHz, lower speed grades may have considerable overclocking headroom just waiting to be exploited.
How much headroom? I got an extra 770MHz out of my Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz, which is quite comfortable running at 3.57GHz with stock air cooling—not bad for a chip that costs less than $160. Could a little help from the overclocking fairy make the Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz a formidable contender against the Athlon 64? Read on to find out. The Pentium 4 520 2.8GHz processor we'll be overclocking today is an off-the-shelf retail unit that wasn't cherry-picked or pretested for overclocking potential. I also shied away from using more extreme cooling solutions in favor of Intel's stock LGA775 cooler. Water cooling, volt-modding, or other more extreme measures may be able to take the processor further, but they're quite a bit more involved and expensive than our stock setup.
