The Celery Report: Issue #2

A Closer Look

Thanks to Brent Neufelder, we have some excellent shots of the symbols embedded in the PCB. These are located in the upper-right corner of the front side of the chip.

"Cloverleaf"

"COMPEQ"

Viewing these symbols is easy on the OEM version of the CPU, as it is not covered by a pre-mounted fan. For the Retail version, you must hold the chip at an angle, but they are still visible.

As it turns out COMPEQ is a manufacturer of a variety of PCB materials, including the substrate for Intel's line of Slot One CPU's. We still haven't been able to gather any information about the second symbol, bit I think it's safe to assume this is also a producer of PCB.

The reverse "RU" on the COMPEQ chips as well as the "94V-0" on both PCB's are Underwriters Laboratory marks. Information on the first can be found here, and on the second, here. I think we can logically assume that the UL marks bear no relationship to overclockability, so that leaves manufacturer and date.

The numbers "9829" and "9832" are the dates the PCB was manufactured. As I stated earlier, I think that the quality of this production can vary week-to-week and thus affect the quality of the entire CPU itself. I've concluded that in order to divine a clue, in advance, we have to look at both this date as well as the label date placed by Intel when the silicon is actually mounted.


OEM CPU label

One thing I would like to note, and it's something that was pointed out by many of you who wrote; the sampling included in these reports are very small in comparison to the total of Intel's production of the Celeron. This is absolutely correct. That's why it's important to bear in mind that your results may vary. But, based on the overall overclockability of the Celery, I think some conclusions can be safely drawn when we encounter a dramatic variance in this success rate with an individual batch of CPU's.

In the report itself, I have created a table of results including the relevant information outlined above. More on that later, but right now let's take a look at....