Question BCLK OC of ADL non-K models apparently possible.

[VirtualLarry]

GamerMeld video, apparently it requires a fairly high-end Asus mobo. Waiting for the ASRock B660 board that can do this, or a Z690 Pro4 board.

 

[SteinFG]

Der8auer covered it first iirc

, it requires an external bclk clock gen, so no low end boards will have it probably

 

[Mopetar]

I think any low end board that did have it would be an obvious choice because it unlocks a fair bit of performance for your CPU. If I could get a rough equivalent bump as spending another $50 to get the next step up the CPU ladder, I'd certainly be happy to pay another $20 for a board that would let me do that. It probably doesn't take $20 worth of parts to enable that kind of functionality either.

 

[dullard]

If I could get a rough equivalent bump as spending another $50 to get the next step up the CPU ladder, I'd certainly be happy to pay another $20 for a board that would let me do that. It probably doesn't take $20 worth of parts to enable that kind of functionality either.

It isn't quite that straight-cut.

1. With the current CPU lineup, the next model up is often not $50 more expensive. Suppose you stay within the brand level (same number of cores). Then, the 12100 to 12300 is $21. The 12400 to 12600 is $31. The savings isn't $50.
2. Or if you go up a brand level, a 20% overclock (which is roughly what Der8auer got) might not overcome the gain of more cores. i3->i5 is 25% more cores. i5->i7 is 33% more cores even if you don't count the efficiency cores. So for multithreading applications, the next model up may actually be faster than the overclocked chip.

Only in the case of lightly threaded applications does this really gain you a lot, and in that case, the next CPU up might give you half of those gains anyways ($31 more for the 12600 gives you half the frequency increase you get from overclocking the 12400). Free performance is always great, but it is not necessarily as good as you put it.

 

[nicalandia]

So Purchase a Locked Non-K CPU, get yourself an Expensive MB and DDR5 RAM and you can match a 12700K in Single Thread?.... Meanwhile some people are running top of the line 5000 Ryzen on $50 MB without issues

 

[epsilon84]

So Purchase a Locked Non-K CPU, get yourself an Expensive MB and DDR5 RAM and you can match a 12700K in Single Thread?.... Meanwhile some people are running top of the line 5000 Ryzen on $50 MB without issues

Just because you can 'run' a 5950X on a $50 motherboard, doesn't make it a great idea.

Also have no idea what that has to do with non K ADL overclocking?! Did you just want to mention AMD in your post? LOL...

Anyway, let's hope this function filters down to some lower end (or at least midrange) mobos, the gaming performance of an i5 12400 @ 5.3GHz is actually at 12900K level.

Overclocking has gotten boring since the top end SKUs these days are basically pre overclocked and have barely 10% headroom left, if that. Non K o/c could actually be more fun since you are looking at anywhere between 20 - 50% O/Cs depending on the CPU:

Also worth noting that der8auer mentions in the comments of the linked video that he found 2 B660 boards that could potentially do non K overclocking.

 

[epsilon84]

it requires an external bclk clock gen, so no low end boards will have it probably

Maybe not bottom of the barrel motherboards, but it might be available soon on some B660 boards. Watch this space I guess.

Pinned by der8auer EN

der8auer EN
2 days ago
Quick update regarding Mainboards: I found two B660 Boards which should technically allow non-K OC. Ordered both and should have an update within the next 2-3 days

 

[DrMrLordX]

How long before Intel tries to kill this with a microcode update?

 

[Mopetar]

It isn't quite that straight-cut.

1. With the current CPU lineup, the next model up is often not $50 more expensive. Suppose you stay within the brand level (same number of cores). Then, the 12100 to 12300 is $21. The 12400 to 12600 is $31. The savings isn't $50.
2. Or if you go up a brand level, a 20% overclock (which is roughly what Der8auer got) might not overcome the gain of more cores. i3->i5 is 25% more cores. i5->i7 is 33% more cores even if you don't count the efficiency cores. So for multithreading applications, the next model up may actually be faster than the overclocked chip.

Only in the case of lightly threaded applications does this really gain you a lot, and in that case, the next CPU up might give you half of those gains anyways ($31 more for the 12600 gives you half the frequency increase you get from overclocking the 12400). Free performance is always great, but it is not necessarily as good as you put it.

The exact dollar amount of value it can provide doesn't chance the core of the argument, only what a company could justify charging for the feature.

 

[epsilon84]

How long before Intel tries to kill this with a microcode update?

Shhhhh!

In all seriousness, back in the day I did downgrade the BIOS on my Z170 mobo just to retain the non K overclock... well that was until I realised AVX was broken if you did. Ended up just getting a 6700K after that haha

 

[DrMrLordX]

Shhhhh!

In all seriousness, back in the day I did downgrade the BIOS on my Z170 mobo just to retain the non K overclock... well that was until I realised AVX was broken if you did. Ended up just getting a 6700K after that haha

Good luck regardless. Maybe people will find a way to keep their OC running for awhile and enjoy a bit of bargain performance.

 

[deasd]

It all depend on external BCLK clock gen, so it is just like Skylake OC. Niche usage and high end mobo only. Strategy wise competing against 12600k+cheap z690 is not what Intel wanna see... if some manufacturer decide to do clock gen into H610 and cheap B660 I think I might bite but it's impossible.

 

[coercitiv]

Anyway, let's hope this function filters down to some lower end (or at least midrange) mobos, the gaming performance of an i5 12400 @ 5.3GHz is actually at 12900K level.

FYI for 12400 @ 5.3Ghz you're going to need an AIO to keep the cores cool (which is exactly what der8auer was using). Average chip power consumption won't be the problem for air cooling (especially in gaming), but hot spots will be. The board quality will also likely limit maximum OC capabilities, since value boards won't offer the same quality for power delivery, which means slightly higher Vcore for stability, which means more heat.

Somewhere around 4.6-4.8Ghz will be a more feasible target for 'value' air coolers, which is still a respectable 15-20% increase in gaming clocks.

 

[epsilon84]

FYI for 12400 @ 5.3Ghz you're going to need an AIO to keep the cores cool (which is exactly what der8auer was using). Average chip power consumption won't be the problem for air cooling (especially in gaming), but hot spots will be. The board quality will also likely limit maximum OC capabilities, since value boards won't offer the same quality for power delivery, which means slightly higher Vcore for stability, which means more heat.

Somewhere around 4.6-4.8Ghz will be a more feasible target for 'value' air coolers, which is still a respectable 15-20% increase in gaming clocks.

4.6-4.8 seems too conservative to me, unless you are running the stock Intel HSF,. Shouldn't ~5.0GHz (with a bit of silicon lottery luck thrown in) be achievable on a decent air cooler designed for 125W? From experience, the last 100-200MHz of a 'stable' OC tends to really throw the voltage curve into 'uber inefficient' territory, so der8auer's chip could have feasibly done ~5.0 on air, unless you are claiming an AIO provides an additional 500-700MHz of headroom over an air cooler, which is unheard of. How bad is the hot spot situation with ADL? I'm aware its a smaller die and all, but didnt Intel dispense with the TIM and are using solder to mitigate the heat transfer problem?

I'm fairly certain a 12400 @ 5.0GHz would draw less power (and voltage) than my current 8700K @ 5.0, which actually happens to be running stable on a budget tower air cooler (Hyper 212+). FWIW, my 8700K is stable at 5.1GHz under a 240mm AIO (which I've saved for my next build), but with unsafe 24/7 voltages. So an AIO added barely 100MHz compared to a budget air cooler, and I had to use unsafe voltages to do so. In terms of a usable daily OC the AIO didnt help at all, though it does obviously help with lower temps - not a huge deal for gaming.

I'm not expecting $50 - $100 mobos to have this feature, but if we can get a $150 B660 with half decent VRMs that are able to safely OC 12100s/12400s to ~5GHz (or close to) then there isn't currently a better value combo for gaming IMO... provided you actually have a GPU to go with that. Welcome to 2022 I guess

 

[coercitiv]

How bad is the hot spot situation with ADL? I'm aware its a smaller die and all, but didnt Intel dispense with the TIM and are using solder to mitigate the heat transfer problem?

We'll see results in practice, all I can point out at the moment is that Roman's overclocked 12400 hit 96C in CB23 while running under water. It's not clear from the video that his setup was an AIO, but he did mention he was using an AIO on the Celeron OC video (when he switched to a custom loop).

I'll keep an open mind though, let's see what can be achieved with a value board and a budget cooler.

 

[epsilon84]

We'll see results in practice, all I can point out at the moment is that Roman's overclocked 12400 hit 96C in CB23 while running under water. It's not clear from the video that his setup was an AIO, but he did mention he was using an AIO on the Celeron OC video (when he switched to a custom loop).

I'll keep an open mind though, let's see what can be achieved with a value board and a budget cooler.

I'm also curious if those 'hotspot' temps will be the limiting factor when overclocking non-K ADL chips with budget style air coolers, I guess with a bigger sample size we could be more certain one way or another.

If a 5GHz 12400 means we have to accept 90C+ in a worst case scenario (but remains stable) then so be it I guess. Might make you nervous if all you do is watch the CPU temp monitor, but for actual use its most likely fine. My laptop CPUs have run for years at high temps without issue, if anything I think over-voltage and electromigration kills CPUs a lot faster than high temps do. If that wasn't the case, Intel surely wouldn't ship such substandard stock HSFs if high temps would lead to mass warranty recalls.

 

[guidryp]

Video update today with B660 OC:

 

[coercitiv]

So now we have numbers for air cooling on an open test bench:

• on stock cooler @ 4.6Ghz temps vary between 80-95C in gaming
• on Noctua NH-D15 @ 5Ghz temps peak at 94C in CB23

 

[VirtualLarry]

Looks really promising. i5-12400(F) @ 5.0Ghz all-core, on a more reasonable B660-F ROG STRIX WIFI ATX board. Only minor flaw is, you'll have to source some DDR5 RAM for the board.

I would have liked for him to address whether or not the onboard video is disabled during a BCLK OC ala Skylake, or if it still functions, along with SATA, because Intel de-coupled BCLK on 12th-Gen.

 

[Markfw]

Looks really promising. i5-12400(F) @ 5.0Ghz all-core, on a more reasonable B660-F ROG STRIX WIFI ATX board. Only minor flaw is, you'll have to source some DDR5 RAM for the board.

I would have liked for him to address whether or not the onboard video is disabled during a BCLK OC ala Skylake, or if it still functions, along with SATA, because Intel de-coupled BCLK on 12th-Gen.

So, I looked this up. The motherboard and CPU is $450. The cheapest memory I could find that is decent speed is 5600 and its $400 !! So $850 for 6 cores.

Not a cheap setup.

 

[epsilon84]

Unless DDR5 prices drop drastically, we need DDR4 boards to make this a worthwhile exercise. Otherwise you may as well get a 12600K / Z690 + DDR4 for a lower overall cost.

 

[deasd]

Good news. But we have to wait months until these mobos available...

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1484487559879303173

 

[guidryp]

Good news. But we have to wait months until these mobos available...

If it takes months, I expect Intel will shut it down before that hits the market though.

 

[igor_kavinski]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1485009628723355648

Overclocking seems exciting again.

 

[DrMrLordX]

If it takes months, I expect Intel will shut it down before that hits the market though.

If they can keep it under wraps long enough to get the boards to market, maybe a few people get to enjoy these boards. Intel may try to put a foot down eventually though.

 

[guidryp]

HWUB testing a new MSI prototype B660 DDR4 board: