You might remember that QDI has already announced that their SocketA-motherboard will support overclocking on the day of the Thunderbird launch. However, so far nobody was able to test their board yet. We were particularly lucky that Asus supplied us with a A7V-motherboard at Computex , which is Asus SocketA-solution . This board was already used with Thunderbird as well as Duron and turned out to be the fastest and most reliable SocketA-platform that has been tested by Tom's Hardware so far.

Asus did not tell us much when we received this motherboard and we certainly didn't receive a manual for this pre-release product either. This is why we were more than delighted when we found out that the A7V allows the change of the processor voltage as well as the adjustment of the processor multiplier! The first is done with jumpers, the latter can be achieved with dipswitches. Believe it or not! Without knowing we received the first Thunderbird/Duron overclocking platform!

The fact that Asus was right away able to include overclocking features on their early SocketA-solution proves the point that other motherboard makers will eventually also be able to equip their boards with these nifty settings. Thus I suppose that you don't really need to fiddle around with the FID-pins. As soon as Asus releases the A7V you have all you need to overclock your Thunderbird or Duron processor.