Stable Overclocking With The Pandora

[dispraekailo]

There are claims that the Pandora can be OC'd to 900+Mhz, but are there any hardware limits to prevent the device from overheating?

 

[PokeParadox]

This has been asked before. Please search around.
Basically ARM is a lot different to x86 that's in a PC. They are more energy efficient and don't overheat as easily.
The temperature won't change much if you overclock the Pandora.

The Pandora would crash way before you could overclock high enough to make it overheat or damage it...

 

[dispraekailo]

This has been asked before. Please search around.
Basically ARM is a lot different to x86 that's in a PC. They are more energy efficient and don't overheat as easily.
The temperature won't change much if you overclock the Pandora.

The Pandora would crash way before you could overclock high enough to make it overheat or damage it...

I knew this is true with the arm9, but it's great to hear that it also applies to the a8. Thanks

 

[Sobek]

From what I understood, Pandora was originally supposed to be at 800Mhz instead of 600Mhz. I understand that they clocked it under to significantly extend battery life. I have no problem with the under-clocking to give me 10+ hours of battery life, but I've read a bunch of stuff on the Pandora's chip and somethings say that it can be stable at 1Ghz.
It'd be nice to have solid information on it though. *cough* Craig *cough*

 

[Tom`]

From what I understood, Pandora was originally supposed to be at 800Mhz instead of 600Mhz. I understand that they clocked it under to significantly extend battery life. I have no problem with the under-clocking to give me 10+ hours of battery life, but I've read a bunch of stuff on the Pandora's chip and somethings say that it can be stable at 1Ghz.
It'd be nice to have solid information on it though. *cough* Craig *cough*

Pandora uses a lower-power 600 MHz version of the ARM chip that was clocked at 1 GHz. 900 MHz is the fastest the Pandora's version can run.

 

[conso]

I'd think that the highest clock-rate will vary from processor to processor - no one will guarantee each processor can be clocked to 900 MHz.

 

[Sobek]

"The ARM CortexTM-A8 processor is the first applications processor based on the ARMv7 architecture and is the highest performance, most power-efficient processor available from ARM. With the ability to scale in speed from 600MHz to greater than 1GHz(Emphasis added), the Cortex-A8 processor can meet the requirements for power-optimized mobile devices needing operation in less than 300mW; and performance-optimized consumer applications requiring 2000 Dhrystone MIPS.
The Cortex-A8 processor is ARM’s first superscalar processor featuring technology for enhanced code density and performance, NEON™ technology for multimedia and signal processing, and Jazelle® RCT (Runtime Compilation Target) technology for efficient support of ahead-of-time and just-in-time compilation of Java and other bytecode languages. "

http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM_Cortex-A8.html

I just wanted to add that for reference.

 

[Chip]

It has been tested it to at least 900MHz. You take a minor hit on the total part lifespan, but it's still going to outlive its usefulness. Links: 1 2

 

[javaJake]

I'm telling you guys, this Pandora we've got here is a monster. Prepare yourselves - it's gonna be a biggie.

 

[Tom`]

"The ARM CortexTM-A8 processor is the first applications processor based on the ARMv7 architecture and is the highest performance, most power-efficient processor available from ARM. With the ability to scale in speed from 600MHz to greater than 1GHz(Emphasis added), the Cortex-A8 processor can meet the requirements for power-optimized mobile devices needing operation in less than 300mW; and performance-optimized consumer applications requiring 2000 Dhrystone MIPS.
The Cortex-A8 processor is ARM’s first superscalar processor featuring technology for enhanced code density and performance, NEON™ technology for multimedia and signal processing, and Jazelle® RCT (Runtime Compilation Target) technology for efficient support of ahead-of-time and just-in-time compilation of Java and other bytecode languages. "

http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM_Cortex-A8.html

I just wanted to add that for reference.


That doesn't mean every CPU will scale to over 1 GHz, it means that there are Cortex-A8 CPUs that run at those speeds. The Pentium 4 goes up to 3.6 GHz, but that doesn't mean that you can just take any Pentium 4 and expect it to clock that high, unless it was specifically rated for that.

 

[Adventus]

QUOTE
That doesn't mean every CPU will scale to over 1 GHz, it means that there are Cortex-A8 CPUs that run at those speeds. The Pentium 4 goes up to 3.6 GHz, but that doesn't mean that you can just take any Pentium 4 and expect it to clock that high, unless it was specifically rated for that.
Exactly. The 1 GHz rated version uses a different manufacturing process. Ours is the 600 MHz version.

 

[Gautama]

Will there be a way in which we can find our maximum clock and throttle the speed when needed?

 

[Chip]

Will there be a way in which we can find our maximum clock and throttle the speed when needed?

It won't be necessary. All chips should be fine up to at least 900MHz, and no software should go above that unless you force it.

 

[icurafu]

QUOTE
That doesn't mean every CPU will scale to over 1 GHz, it means that there are Cortex-A8 CPUs that run at those speeds. The Pentium 4 goes up to 3.6 GHz, but that doesn't mean that you can just take any Pentium 4 and expect it to clock that high, unless it was specifically rated for that.
Exactly. The 1 GHz rated version uses a different manufacturing process. Ours is the 600 MHz version.

The good news is that the process we are using for the lower clocks uses less power per MHz and has a very very efficient sleep mode.

But clocking to 900MHz with that kind of efficiency is just a wonderful bonus.

 

[Megatog615]

Is frequency scaling done with powernowd or something?

 

[polkunus]

There are claims that the Pandora can be OC'd to 900+Mhz, but are there any hardware limits to prevent the device from overheating?

THE DEVICE will not heat from overclocking...