Leufken GFD Review

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When it comes to Golden Finger Devices they either work or they don't. Period.  We spent the $25 and got ourselves a Leufken GFD, not so much to review, but because we have a few Athlons that really need to be overclocked.

Ours came in a little Alpha box which cost exactly $1.26 to ship by air mail.

The device measures 50mm x 55mm with 140mm length of power cord leading to a single Molex connector. It uses eight banks of resistors, three diodes, one 8 channel DIP switch, some jumper pins, and the golden finger connector.

There are no instructions on how to use the device, only tables for the DIP switch and jumper pins settings. So I guessed that the device attaches to the Athlon in one particular fashion. No fire and no sparks so that was right. The PCB is silk-screened with corresponding codes, so all one needs to do is match up setting with the little piece of paper. The "D" socket clips firmly onto the Athlon's golden finger, providing an adequate connection.

By setting both the first four dip switches to the overclocking speed, and the jumpers to that same value, I was able to bring a Athlon 550 (0.18 micron) up to a respectable 700Mhz. So the device does indeed work ;-) While I have seen many conversations about size, I was not bothered in the least bit by the dimensions of the Leufken - small case owners may be.

Settings can vary from 500Mhz-1050Mhz, and voltage can be tweaked from 1.45 V to 1.90 V (though 2.0 is possible).  That point was left out so newbies wouldn't fry their new CPU's

Other then the total lack of written instructions, the only other thing I could even think of being a negative is the use of the jumper pins. They just get dropped all to easily, and seem to disappear on the whitest of perfectly flat floors.

Bottom line. The leufken GFD works, the quality of the unit is fine, and it only costs $25. Period.