Phenom II On Ice: AM3 Overclocked With LN2

(Ed.: We had tons of fun with the guys from Team IRONMODS during our Overdrive Overclocking Championship. With AMD's Socket AM3 Phenom II processors on the horizon, we asked team member Ton "TiTON" Khowdee to do a pre-launch exhibition of the X3 720 Black Edition--a chip that AMD says should overclock better than the Phenom II X4 940 BE. He obliged, and provided this write-up and the following photo documentation of his efforts.)

This article will be a hardcore demonstration of AMD's latest Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition processor. This is not a traditional review of a processor. We are not focusing on 24x7 stability. Instead, we'll focus on passing benchmarks at the fastest possible speed. We will be putting AMD's latest Black Edition chip through the ultimate torture test. The CPU will be frozen with liquid nitrogen and its voltage cranked all the way up. We are going to dance on the fine line between breakneck speeds and complete CPU destruction. We will go to the dark side and see what performance rewards are awaiting those brave enough to travel down this path.