Back in the good old days, overclocking one's CPU was uber-easy. Needed a little more speed? Why pay more? Basically you just adjusted the multiplier jumpers on your board, and set the CPU to whatever it would handle. Regrettably, due mostly to people "rebadging" processors (ex. Selling an overclocked 166 as a 200) the processor companies (Intel and AMD) currently lock the processors internally so that the only real way to mess with the default clock speed is to increase the Front Side Bus (FSB). Playing with your FSB isn't always the best of ideas, as you can get some really weird things going on after only a few MHZ increase. Weird things such as your hard drives deciding that they no longer contain your data, crashes ETC. Quake 3 is a good example of a program that really, really doesn't tend to like odd FSBs. On the original Athlon processors you could (with a little surgery and prying) attach what was known as a "Goldenfingers" board, that unlocked the multiplier and allowed mad overclocking. (I was most pleased when I managed to get my 500 running stable at 750 with a little voltage tweaking.) Up until recently with the "new" (ex. Socket A) Athlons, unless one was prepared to get out the soldering iron, gird one's loins and risk destroying an expensive motherboard there was no really good method of overclocking, and certainly no simple way that your average computer enthusiast would be willing to try. (Yes, yes.. I know there's those among you who consider it to be nothing to alter a board, but some of us like those little things called "warranties".) Along comes the Upgradeware XP-TMC Unlocker to solve all of our problems.

Installation

Upon opening the nice little retail package that the device came in (very nice if you own a store and want to stock them) we pulled out a complete set of detailed instructions, a little package of heat paste, extenders for the processor's heatsink clips, and the XP-TMC unit itself. Installation of the unit is pretty simple, it's basically a socket that the processor slots into, then the whole unit goes into the motherboard socket. The TMC has a set of five tiny little switches on the bottom of it that control the multiplier, and are quite easy to set with any small object. (Ex. Pen, small screw drivers, etc.) The TMC is NOT a ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) socket like the one on your motherboard however. It's an old skool socket, where you line everything up carefully and go around the edges pushing it down until the CPU is seated firmly. Removal requires the careful use of a thin bladed screw driver, prying all around the edges of the cpu to remove it from the TMC socket. It's not an insanely tight fit however, and we inserted and removed several processors without any problems.

We dropped the completed unit onto our MSI KT4V test bed system, with an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ Processor, attached the heatsink with the little extension clips (needed since the processor and unit sit higher on the socket than the processor alone) and fired it up. Due to the fact that we're using a Thermal Take Volcano 7, and a case that happens to have a big metal bar in the way, we actually had to pull the motherboard right out of the case for installation. Not a good thing for playing with this unit, as changing the multiplier actually involves pulling the TMC/CPU unit off the motherboard. If you're running a large heatsink in a tight case you're in for a lot of work pulling everything apart and putting it back together. Luckily, once you get it set and running you won't need to do it again.

If you look closely at the TMC unit on the left you can see the five switches on it's underside for multiplier adjustment.

We started out with the multiplier at 15x, (the unit will handle up to 24x) which is the default for the 2400+ test processor Oddly, upon installing we discovered that the CPU was dead. I have no idea what happened between pulling the CPU out and remounting it, as we observed standard handling and static cautions. Another 2400+ was installed and worked perfectly, so I believe it was just a fluke that the one bought it during the installation.

No problems were found during boot at 2400+, so we pulled the processor and put the multiplier up to 16x with our handy new switches on the TMC unit. Again, the machine fired up without any issues, and the CPU is recognized as a 2600+ in Windows XP Home. (2.13 ghz) When we went to 16.5x multiplier, the CPU was recognized as a 2100+, (??) and at 17x, wouldn't even post.... Tried it with two different 2400+ processors and got the same results. Ahhh well, 2600+ ain't bad, it was cheaper than buying a new processor, and other processors might go higher. Voltage tweaking might have let us run higher, but I'm not real big on playing with core voltages. Fire=bad.

Another possibility is installing a newer Athlon on an older board. For instance, (and we're going to try it) installing one of the new Barton XPs on a KT333 motherboard, then adjusting the multiplier to get the processor up to speed. You're not going to get the faster FSB, but at least you don't need a new board.

Somewhat not so good things

- Was a little tricky to get the metal extenders for the processor clips to stay up,   needed three hands in there sometimes.
- A bit of a pain to have to pull the CPU out to change the multipliers, but for most users   it really shouldn't be an issue.
- Won't work on all Athlon processors, according to the spec sheet on the   Upgradeware website.

Conclusions

Want to get a little better performance for a small amount of cash, but don't want to start in on your motherboard with the soldering iron and hammer? The TMC is for you. It's easy, it's simple to understand, and it's cheaper than a new CPU. Is it worth $40 for 5% performance? That's a personal decision.

Editor's note: Our digital camera decided to be stupid about taking close up shots, so no detail pics, sorry.