Both motherboards used on the tests were simple boards, so they had few overclocking options. Even so it was still possible to have an Idea of the CPUs overclocking potential.

All of them have the clock multiplier locked.

With our Sempron 3000+, which runs internally at 1.8 GHz multiplying its 200 MHz base clock by 9, we managed to increase its base clock to 250 MHz, which made it run internally at 2.25 GHz, an increase of 25% over standard clock.

By using this overclocking, AMD processor accomplished the Super Pi benchmarking in 42.765 seconds, time 24.18% lower than that of the processor operating at its original frequency. A good result.

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Figure 7: Sempron 3000+ (1.800 MHz) running at 2.250 MHz (250 MHz x 9).

With our Celeron D 331, which runs internally at 2.66 GHz multiplying its 133 MHz external clock by 20, we managed to increase its external clock to 165 MHz, which made it run internally at 3.30 GHz, an increase of 23.78% over standard clock.

Running at 3.3 GHz, Celeron D accomplished the Super Pi benchmarking in 64.8 seconds, time 14.84% lower than that of the processor operating at its original frequency.

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Figure 8: Celeron D 331 (2.660 MHz) running at 3.300 MHz (165 MHz x 20).

AMD CPU benefited more from the frequency increasing, despite the fact that the Intel CPU achieved higher increase in megahertz than the AMD CPU (634 MHz vs. 450 MHz).