It can finally be done. Asus now delivers BIOS versions with its Socket 775 motherboards that allow you to tweak Pentium 4 Prescott multipliers, which represents a first step by a mobo maker to unleash the processor's overclocking potential.
While Asus' 'CPU Lock Free' mobo BIOS feature won't unlock the full potential of Pentium 4 multipliers, it does makes use of Intel Prescott's Performance Requirement Bit feature. It is now thus possible to unlock the multiplier for high-end P4 Prescott processor.
This news is not ground breaking, but significant all of the same. Think about running a Pentium 4 Processor 550 or 560 with a next-generation FSB1066, DDR2 at 350 MHz (DDR2-710) and a 3.72 GHz core clock speed? Sound like fun?
We dug our P5AD2 out of a stack of other motherboards, installed a new BIOS version Asus sent us and gave it a try.
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Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.
