Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/1999/09/02/dells_bell_admits_company_overclocks/

Dell's Bell admits company overclocks chips

But all in the cause of science, of course

By Mike Magee

Posted in On-Prem, 2nd September 1999 17:03 GMT

Intel Developer Forum "If you find yourself in a hole stop digging". That was the advice Denis Healey, a British Labour politician offered to those faced with questions that put them on the spot. Jay Bell, a Dell Fellow, was enlisted by Intel yesterday to laud the praises of Rambus over PC-133. At one point, he said that Dell had experimented with chipsets from competitors to Chipsetzilla, just to see how Rambus and SDRAM functioned. Once in this hole, he should have graciously excused himself, and climbed out. No. Instead Jay continued digging. He said: "We've looked at oher chips and we've even done the unthinkable and overclocked chipsets." Did Jay climb out of the hole at this point? No, he was in too deep. He then admitted that Dell had looked at other microprocessors too. A hack asked which ones. At this point, Jay might have carried on digging, but was rescued by cool Intel spin apparatchik Dan Francisco, who threw him a line. Oops... ®