Advanced Micro Devices breaks Guinness world record for fastest CPU
(CBS) - Advanced Micro Devices announced Tuesday that it broke the Guinness world record for fastest central processing unit (CPU) by overclocking.
Overclocking is the process of making a microchip run at a faster than intended without malfunctioning.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based microchip maker reported that a team of overclockers worked together to push the AMD FX processor a.k.a. "Bulldozer" to a frequency of 8.429GHz. The previous world record was 8.308GHz.
Sami Maekinen, Brian Mclachlan, Pete Hardman and Aaron Schradin, nicknamed Team AMD FX, spent several days to prepare for the record-setting event, which took place in front of press in Austin, Texas.
To prepare for the event, McLachlan was brought in to run preliminary tests. The AMD FX processor was cooled with liquid nitrogen below -180 degrees centigrade. With the first round of success, the next question was whether or not liquid helium, "a substance only a few degrees higher than absolute zero," would break the processor or enable it to perform faster.
Team AMD FX would soon find the answer. They tested the AMD FX three times in front of a live audience. "On the third run, everything went perfectly, and a world record fell," AMD senior manager Simon Solotko wrote in a blog post.
A video posted to AMD's YouTube page shows the excitement at the movement the record was broken.
The AMD FX CPU is set to launch in the fourth quarter of 2011.
