Project Ultimate Pi: Who's got the fastest Pi? Overclocking & Benchmark Leaderboard

[MorgUK]

I will choose some benchmarking software when the Pi launches. It will include CPU, GPU and Storage benchmarks. We will have a leader for each category, but the Ultimate Pi will be the person with the highest combined score.

You can use any distro and any cooling methods or modifications. Any overclocks will have to be proved stable, I will decide on the method to test this.

[d_brennen]

It was only a matter of time

Quake 3 timedemos could be useful

[Lynbarn]

...bearing in mind of course, that there will be a considerable variation in the ability of individual processors to respond to over-clocking, over-volting etc, so it will be totally down to the luck of the draw as to who gets a "hot" processor in their 'Pi.  Also, over-volting your 'Pi will void your warranty

A more challenging exercise might be to see how under-clocked/volted you can get and still run something useful ...

[JeremyF]

Lynbarn said:


your warranty


{this post has serious intent} Forgive me for interrupting, but I was unaware (for whatever reasons) that the Pi came with a warranty. Is this only mentioned as part of your joke (which is fine), or is there actually such a thing?

[RaTTuS]

JeremyF said:


Lynbarn said:


your warranty


{this post has serious intent} Forgive me for interrupting, but I was unaware (for whatever reasons) that the Pi came with a warranty. Is this only mentioned as part of your joke (which is fine), or is there actually such a thing?


All good sold in the EU come with a warranty 12mnths .. Let me find the correct data

[Lynbarn]

JeremyF said:


Lynbarn said:


your warranty


{this post has serious intent} Forgive me for interrupting, but I was unaware (for whatever reasons) that the Pi came with a warranty. Is this only mentioned as part of your joke (which is fine), or is there actually such a thing?


As RaTTuS says, a warranty is a legal requirement – it has to be "fit for purpose". I don't know much about the technical aspects, but the 'Pi has an "OTP bit" which is permanently set once it has been over-volted, and can be read by RPF in the event of a 'Pi being returned under warranty. See This Thread for more information.

[S0litaire]

my R-Pi shopping list:

1  plastic case with tight fitting lid (around 12" square) (proof of concept case will be plastic, but final case will be made from glass or another material that will not react to the Oil.)

4ltr mineral oil.

1 suitable pump

Silicone sealant

1 Hobby Drill + assorted bits

Wonder how fast it can go while being cooled in a mineral oil bath…

^__^

[nullstring]

I propose two tables. overvolt and non-overvolt.

And really, this shouldn't be considered a competition or anything. We should call this RPI overclocking "club" (Or perhaps two clubs, one for overvolt, one for non-overvolt). All significant overclocks should be documented.

These tables are very useful in order to know where to start and what to expect when trying to get a successful overclock, instead of having to simply take stabs in the dark. (And will demonstrate how much mileage may vary by showing the range of stable overclocks)

[Lob0426]

SOlitaire: some components do not like mineral oil. Capacitors with cardboard are the worst but there are others.

I like the idea of tables for Overclocking. What fields do you LAN to include in the tables?

[Cylon]

Lynbarn said:


JeremyF said:


Lynbarn said:


your warranty


{this post has serious intent} Forgive me for interrupting, but I was unaware (for whatever reasons) that the Pi came with a warranty. Is this only mentioned as part of your joke (which is fine), or is there actually such a thing?


As RaTTuS says, a warranty is a legal requirement – it has to be "fit for purpose". I don"t know much about the technical aspects, but the "Pi has an "OTP bit" which is permanently set once it has been over-volted, and can be read by RPF in the event of a "Pi being returned under warranty. See This Thread for more information.


Hmmm made me laugh this... 'Fit for purpose'... Please Liz can you say for definite what the Purpose was because i feel the intend use (ie purpose) may not be the same for everyone of these PI's... LOL

If i dont learn anything is it the fault of the PI or ME ?? Educate me else i am indeed lost...

Sorry could not resist that.

[Lynbarn]

Cylon said:


Lynbarn said:


JeremyF said:


Lynbarn said:


your warranty


{this post has serious intent} Forgive me for interrupting, but I was unaware (for whatever reasons) that the Pi came with a warranty. Is this only mentioned as part of your joke (which is fine), or is there actually such a thing?


As RaTTuS says, a warranty is a legal requirement – it has to be "fit for purpose". I don"t know much about the technical aspects, but the "Pi has an "OTP bit" which is permanently set once it has been over-volted, and can be read by RPF in the event of a "Pi being returned under warranty. See This Thread for more information.


Hmmm made me laugh this... 'Fit for purpose'... Please Liz can you say for definite what the Purpose was because i feel the intend use (ie purpose) may not be the same for everyone of these PI's... LOL

If i dont learn anything is it the fault of the PI or ME ?? Educate me else i am indeed lost...

Sorry could not resist that.


If you don't learn anything, that is more likely to be your "fault", not the 'Pi!

It is an electronic device. If out of the box it doesn't turn on when you apply power (at the correct voltage!), for example, or melts as soon as you plug the HDMI cable in, if the SOC falls out when you turn it upside down - then you may have a claim that it is not fit for purpose.

Obviously what you do with it is beyond the control of RPF, and any obvious (or even not so obvious, but evidenced) deliberate damage or use beyond its design parameters will void that. See THIS and THIS for a little more info.

(N.B. I am NOT a lawyer, or an expert in this field so don't take any of this as legally accurate or binding.) The RPF lawyers will no doubt have been through all this in considerable detail during the design and build stages.

[Jessie]

MorgUK said:


I will choose some benchmarking software when the Pi launches. It will include CPU, GPU and Storage benchmarks. We will have a leader for each category, but the Ultimate Pi will be the person with the highest combined score.

You can use any distro and any cooling methods or modifications. Any overclocks will have to be proved stable, I will decide on the method to test this.



As soon as I can buy more than 1 I will be down to push one as far as humanly possible.  I don't want to cook the one I will be using for XBMC or as a NAS.  I think we should have two brackets one for stock voltage and one for over-volted.

As for the warranty:  I could care less, I'm sure it would cost me almost as much to pay shipping twice to the US as it would just to buy another.  Also I'm fairly sure that I won't own a single one with a warranty in-tact anyway.

[MorgUK]

OK, I'm not sure we'll have a separate table for stock voltage but it will atleast have a field in the table.

I also like the underclocking idea, just wondering how we could judge it? Unless you mean simply for banter in this thread?

[tzj]

yay a chance to do some REAL over-clocking, without busting something that costs the earth

plus sub-zero cooling may need its own list/table and split between A and B models.

[poplap]

I cant wait to get more then one, so that i can do some extreme overclocking on it.

Copper rods as heat sink and some dry ice, get this thing sub zero and see how far it will go stable and unstable. fingers crossed that i might get to 2ghz (if all the planets aline and the overclocking gods join in (the silicon might melt even with the dry ice trying to hit that speed) )

[MorgUK]

I'll get a website up for us soon

[tzj]

sweet

just 3 things are mulling around my head with this...

is there definitely a temp sensor in the chip?

can the chip operate below the stated -40°c?

and what cheap vaiable methods could be used to achieve those low temps?

[Jessie]

I honestly doubt dry ice, liquid nitrogen, or liquid helium will yeild any better results on this particular chip.  I could be wrong here, and I hope someone proves me wrong, but I think there are too many other points of failure in any SOC to yeild sub-zero cooling affective.  What I mean is I think you will reach a chip's overclocking threshold before it even gets very warm.  These little chips act nothing like the massive die of an intel or AMD x86 processor.  From my exp overclocking ATMEL AVRs and ST Micro STM32s I can say that in all probibility the busses start to fail first and not the ARM core or the other parts.  I have never delt with a Broadcom SOC so I can't say for sure, but with the STM32 the USB, DMA, and other such things run at a divisor of the core bus speed so they start to quit first.

[S0litaire]

Think i agree with Jessie,

Don't think the SoC gets hot enough for anything below 0c to make any difference.

I think you'll be lucky to get the chip to go hotter than 50c over clocked+over volted under extreme stress.

At that sort of temp you only need air cooling or liquid cooling at most to keep it down to the 20c and below level.

Wait till you get your hands on a board and see that temp it does get to under stress.

[tzj]

thanks for the input

I guess the only way super-cooling would work on this sort of chip would be if it was super-conductive

but in these cases there"s nothing wrong with pushing luck

[MorgUK]

I'm working on a site for us pi enthusiasts

http://www.ultimatepi.nanobotf.....icator.com

I may buy a domain if it gets going and the pi does actually overclock!

[tzj]

is the site live?

[MorgUK]

Sorry remove the www It's under development.

http://ultimatepi.nanobotfabricator.com/

[Gert van Loo]

The silicon goes trough a complex curve. Too hot or too cold does not work. Also this has been suggested already: search the Forum. The PI does net get hot so cooling it does not help.

[tzj]

so room temp is the desired temp... so even moddings cheap, yay