Sorry if this has been asked before but I have never seen a thorough explanation for it. What I would like to know is just what determines that say a Pentium4 3.2E (like the one I recently bought) is only good for 3.2Ghz as standard. Then lets say that a few months later Intel's engineers produce the next step (almost always 200Mhz faster). Do they just apply a little more voltage to a 3.2 or is there much more going on than that within the manufacturing process. What is to stop them just making 3.2's with a slightly higher voltage and multiplier using the exact same chip with no other material changes. Is it possible that all P4E's are the same but just different voltages + multipliers applied when they are manfufactured so in effect you alter these and hey presto you have got the next fastest CPU when marketing tell you they need the next highest clock rate. The obvious reason for my question is that I wanna overclock as I am a little disappointed in the minimal speed difference I have over seen my old P4 2.8b even though I have also gone from an I845e to I875 motherboard and Dual Channel DDR400. In real world terms it only feels 5-10% @ best quicker.
