Installation of the FreeSpeed Pro is pretty simple. The
hardest and most dangerous part of the operation is removing the case from the
Athlon processor. You don't really have to strip the Athlon down to bare PCB.
You just have to remove the plastic case to expose the part where the FreeSpeed
Pro will plug in (see below).
Now decasing an Athlon is not a job for the
week of heart. If you screw it up, you can kiss your processor good bye. You can
kiss your warranty good bye too. If this doesn't scare you then you can find out
how I take Athlons apart
here.
Once the Athlon has been decased, the rest of
the operation is easy. Just take the FreeSpeed Pro and set the DIP switches to
the stock CPU speed, plug the FreeSpeed Pro into the Athlon socket. Then plug in
a power connector to the back of the FreeSpeed Pro power connector and fire up
the system. The reason you want to set it stock speed at first is to make sure
the unit works. Once you confirm that it's working like it should, you can start
overclocking your heart out.
FreeSpeed Pro worked as advertised. The
included instruction sheet shows DIP settings from 500Mhz to 1050Mhz in 50Mhz
steps. Core voltage can be adjusted from 1.45V to 1.90V in .05V steps. There are
no L2 cache ratio settings.
FreeSpeed Pro won't let you overclock your
Athlon higher than any other methods. How high your Athlon can overclock is
still determined by the quality of your CPU. FreeSpeed Pro is just a nice simple
way to go about overclocking. Using the FreeSpeed Pro I was able to get my
Athlon 550 to 700Mhz using the big Alpha P3125 cooler.
Price at $65 including shipping, the unit
seems kinda expensive. However, after carefully looking it over and using it, I
came to the conclusion that it's a fair price to pay. Of course you can build
one of these things yourself for way less money but by the time you're finished,
you may wish you had just pay the $65 in the first place. It should be note that
FreeSpeed Pro is the less expensive of these type of devices currently available
for sale.
My only complaint with the unit, and it's a
minor one, is that the two rows of DIP switches are both numbered from 1 to 8.
However the DIP switch diagram that the unit came with shows DIP switch settings
from 1 to 16. Basically, the second row of DIP that say 1 to 8 is really 9 to
16. That minor gripe aside, I found FreeSpeed Pro the best of the Athlon
overclocking devices I've seen so far. If you don't have an overclock capable
Athlon motherboard, FreeSpeed Pro is the best way for you to get some free
speed.
The Goods
-
Works great
-
Lifetime guarantee against mechanical
failure
-
It's the cheapest card on the market
-
Nice and small, easy to install
-
No soldering is needed
The Bad
Rating:
8.5/10
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