The Celery Report: Issue #6

I know, I know, I said that last week was my final report. What can I say; I think I might be a hardcore Geek.

I got so many reports in of success with the new "retail" SL2WM processor, that I had to take a look for myself. For those who haven't heard, Intel began packaging the former OEM version of the CPU for retail sale. It comes in exactly the same box, with exactly the same documentation and the same attached fan. The original retail had the sSPEC code SL32A.

I also had an awful lot of disappointed people who got to the party a bit late; after I stopped taking orders for the combo. So, with a Herculean effort, I went in to the market place, scoured the Earth and managed to scrape up 60 processors. Ain't I a great guy?:-)

Beyond all that, I have this pathological need to know, rather than just hear. Several large vendors, as well as a good size number of individuals contacted me and told me that these new retails were doing the 450 Tango just fine. This is all well and good, but without actually touching, testing, feeling, stroking... HeHe.

On the other hand, I heard from a very trustworthy smaller vendor that these chips were not doing well on his bench. This is a guy that I absolutely believe, so hopefully he just got his hands on a bad batch. He did, however, tell me that he's two for two with the 366A at 550Mhz, default voltage. HMM...

This week's report will be short and to the point with the results, but first, let me chow down on a little crow from my very first Celery report. In my first installment I said "the assertion that the Retail Boxed CPU's are better overclockers makes no sense", and "there is no difference in overclockability between Costa Rican CPUs and Malaysian CPU’s."

I wasn't just wrong, I was dead wrong. The Malay chips, on balance, are much more overclockable than the Costa's, especially in later production weeks. In the Retail form, these chips are as close to 100% as you can get, with nearly 90% dancing at 2v. They also run 6 to 8 degrees cooler than their Costa Rican counterparts. At least in OEM, the Costa Rican CPU's come nowhere near these results. YECH, I hate crow! :-)

One other thing. I am no longer selling the overclocked combo, so please don't e-mail and ask. The CPU supply is simply too spotty to provide consistent customer service, and the 60 I grabbed this week are all sold.

Now, a little about the Celery cooking process. Those of you have read previous Celery reports can feel free to skip this section, but I include it for complete and utter disclosure's sake.;-)