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Intel Plans to Limit Sandy Bridge Overclocking

July 24th, 2010 by Sue CPU, Hardware, Intel, NEWS6 Comments

Intel has planned to deliberately limit Sandy Bridge overclocking, according to the company’s presentations.

The first Sandy Bridge processors will be available in two versions of Fully Unlocked and Partially Unlocked.

Intel is going to set limited ratios for Partially Unlocked version (above Turbo), while no limit to the ratios for Fully Unlocked users.

Besides, no limit is posed on the DDR3 ratios any more for the latest P6x chips, which means better overclocking potential for DDR3 memory on P6x motherboards.

According to HKEPC, the Base Clock Generate and DMICLK design have been altered on P67 chips. The new Clock Generate is integrated, while Base Clock doesn’t exist any more, so you can only adjust the DMICLK.

The problem is, the PCI-E and SATA clock would change with the adjustment of DMICLK, which makes it more difficult to overclock the CPU.

For the high-end segment Intel is going to introduce Sandy Bridge E processor with new integrated memory controller which supports up to DDR3 2666+. The corresponding motherboard chip is codenamed Patsburg (X68?) and using LGA 2011.

Fortunately the Patsburg will continue to employ DB1200 Differential Buffer design, so its overclocking performance should not be compromised.

Pictures courtesy of Bit-tech

6 Responses to “Intel Plans to Limit Sandy Bridge Overclocking”

  1. TbS775 Says:
    July 25th, 2010 at 3:59 pm

    Why would they make it harder to OC when when that has been a major selling point for them?

  2. lehpron Says:
    July 26th, 2010 at 3:33 am

    Most people don’t overclock, so considering the grand scheme Intel isn’t taking a hit if they loose all OC’ers to AMD, if this rumor happens. With that said and from Intel’s prespective, they could have made more money had mainstream overclockers bought higher-premium unlocked CPUs, that’s their argument whether or not this rumor is true. BTW, overclocking hasn’t been a major selling point to Intel, rather vendors who enable it on their motherboards. Intel’s own motherboards (except extreme chipsets) don’t have the option.

    Ultimately if this move pushes forward, Intel is banking on overclocking customers remaining or choosing Intel depending on how their K processors are priced, since most won’t get EE’s. They are just trying to force users to accept the costs of their desires: To pay more for the unlocked CPUs. In fact if you went to Intel’s website, the only CPUs they advertise for overclockers are K or EE, nothing else.

    Of the majority non-loyal overclockers, switching isn’t a big deal if need be. Its the loyal Intel customers that will be tested and may seem almost offended by the idea of locking out all CPUs except a handful of K’s and EE’s.

  3. jason Says:
    July 26th, 2010 at 11:56 pm

    @lehpron

    Overclockers are the ones who make large scale buying decisions and steer the market. Think back when Intel was stuck on the Pentium4 and AMD had the Athlon 64 which was superior in every way. AMD was really growing and making a name for itself because enthusiasts pushed the company for superior performance. Enthusiasts are also overclockers. Enthusiasts are also easily spurned when a company makes a decision like this. Intel is safe for now but if AMD’s Bulldozer has any teeth then Intel is making a very bad decision locking these CPU’s. Enthusiasts will flock back to AMD and spurn Intel once again.

  4. aRUN Says:
    September 5th, 2010 at 4:51 am

    INTEL SANDY BRIDGE CRUSHES BULL DOZER AND EXPELS NEHALEM
    GO FOR MORE
    http://lensfire.blogspot.com/search/label/sandy%20bridge

  5. Toast Says:
    September 5th, 2010 at 8:01 am

    @aRUN

    …where to start… for starters caps lock it’s right there next to your pinky, just press it then, you link to a website that shamelessly stole that article from Anandtech, followed by a baseless statement. So where are the Sandy bridge vs. Nehalem vs Bulldozer benches to back up that claim?

  6. Expertview Says:
    September 5th, 2010 at 7:34 pm

    Looks like AMD finally listened and made “multithreading done right” on Bulldozer. Bulldozer is made of modules, each contains 4 cores (or pipes as AMD says). The first Bulldozer should consist two modules – 8 cores. It can take care up to 8 threads, but it can put one module (four cores) fully utilize on single thread. That said, the performance for single threaded apps is highly improved. So games and other apps should run clearly faster than on any current CPU including current Intel CPU’s. Since there are already multithreaded apps, all AMD needs to do is add modules, four modules should give Intel rough time. No useless idle cores, more effective architecture.

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