Speed Strip SSA-1 Review - PAGE 1

AMD Athlon overclocking is always a tricky game. Many things can be done to speed up processors but many come at the possible cost of the processor itself by using soldiering techniques and whatnot to unlock the potential of the CPU. Speed Strip LLC in these times has come up with a patent pending bar to add onto the bottom of some of these Thoroughbred and Barton core cpu's functioning with the AXDA design. The SSA-1 is the first to a possible line of unlocking strips for these processors.

On both AMD and Intel CPUs, the multiplier on the processor is locked. To overclock a processor, either the front-side bus or the multiplier is changed. The problem is that when you over the FSB, the memory, AGP slot and PCI bus will be overclocked which can affect the stability of the system. Frequency dividers for the PCI and AGP slot usually only kick in at certain frequencies. The purpose of the SSA-1 is to unlock the multiplier on the AMD CPU which is locked from adjustment. For example the 11x multiplier is a 1800+ at a 133 mhz FSB, 2500+ at a 166 mhz FSB and a 3200+ at a 200 mhz FSB. The problem is that many processors may not overclock that far. If the multiplier was unlocked, you could kick the multiplier down to 10x for example so you can hit one of the FSB frequencies that have a proper divider. With the SSA-1 this becomes possible as the immediate result upon install is the motherboard recognizing the default setting as 5. According to Speed Strip LLC this result of 5x133 is a sign that the product is working and that further adjustment should now be possible.

Little did I know at the time of testing this that the GA 7N400 Pro2 doesn't support a software adjustment for the multiplier and that I would be flipping switches the entire time of testing to hope for a stable multiplier rating. So a word to the wise. Dig up those books if you are like me and having to do this all by hand so that a good estimate of where to go can be found from the start. Right now 11 and 12.5 seem to be some of my most flexible options for this processor as opposed to the 13 that my 2100+ AXDA starts with. Now that I've dropped some hints to what this has already accomplished lets skip the rest of the chit chat and get to work.