Core i3 7350k review

[AtenRa]

It sounds like a hack, though. Are all the listed problems still present these days with the bclk overclock?

http://overclocking.guide/updated-msi-z170-non-k-overclocking-guide-new-bios/

I guess nobody here Overclocked back in the days when PCI was locked to the FSB (Pentium III etc).

 

[LTC8K6]

I guess nobody here Overclocked back in the days when PCI was locked to the FSB (Pentium III etc).

Yeah, we couldn't overclock past the PCI bus tolerance...

Not sure what that has to do with today, though.

Today you need a hacked BIOS.

I don't recall using a hacked BIOS back in the day?

 

[Arachnotronic]

It may now be considered a "hack", since it's not overclocked the "official" way that Intel provides for, but it's not much different than back in the good old days of overclocking Core2 / S775, with FSB overclocks.

The major downside is, no speedstep / voltage throttling, no full-strength AVX/AVX2, and most importantly, no iGPU. Which, for gaming, is no real downside, since you'll be using a dGPU anyways.

Yes, that is why I called it a hack.

 

[AtenRa]

I mentioned the PCI lock because it was a major downside as well, more than loosing the iGPU today or AVX etc. Raising the PCI way above spec tolerances (33MHz) resulted in HDD failure, you could permanently destroy your HDD (i know i have destroyed 3 HDDs with 150MHz buss speed on Piii 650 100MHz buss speed).

If BCLK OC is a hack, by the same logic fsb OC was a hack because you needed a special BIOS or Jumber in the motherboard that allowed raising the fsb speed. Not all Motherboards allowed OC beyond normal fsb speeds (66/100/133MHz).

 

[Arachnotronic]

I mentioned the PCI lock because it was a major downside as well, more than loosing the iGPU today or AVX etc. Raising the PCI way above spec tolerances (33MHz) resulted in HDD failure, you could permanently destroy your HDD (i know i have destroyed 3 HDDs with 150MHz buss speed on Piii 650 100MHz buss speed).

If BCLK OC is a hack, by the same logic fsb OC was a hack because you needed a special BIOS or Jumber in the motherboard that allowed raising the fsb speed. Not all Motherboards allowed OC beyond normal fsb speeds (66/100/133MHz).

Yes, that was a hack, too. That's why it actually made sense to buy faster processors, even though they were based on the same architectures. Kind of like how it is today.

 

[AtenRa]

Yes, that was a hack, too. That's why it actually made sense to buy faster processors, even though they were based on the same architectures. Kind of like how it is today.

No it wasnt made sense to buy more expensive CPUs, back then I was specifically aiming in buying lower FSB CPUs in order to be able to raise FSB one tier above and have a faster CPU at lower price.

Intel Celeron 300A was a 66MHz fsb, rasing to 100MHz fsb (4.5 multiplier) resulted in the famous 450MHz clock increase that made it almost as fast a Pentium iii 450 at half the price

Pentium 650 was a 100MHz fsb (6.5 multiplier), raising to 133MHz fsb resulted in 866MHz Pentium III, raising to 150MHz resulted in to 975MHz Pentium III at half the price etc etc

edit. Even in more recent days, Core 2 Duo days were the epitome of the fsb OC, nobody was talking about hack OC or not.

My 300 Euro Core 2 Quad 9450 was fsb OCed to 3.2GHz resulted in to exactly the same as 3x more expensive Core 2 Quad QX9770.

My 300 Euro Core i7 920 when OC was faster than a 3x more expensive Core i7 975

 

[coercitiv]

nobody was talking about hack OC or not.

Well, we are now - when people claim other CPUs aren't worth their asking price based on a comparison with overclocked 6400.

Personally I'm publicly "against" the BCLK overclock for one reason only - people tend to emphasize the clear benefit while forgetting to mention all the downsides. They are important this time around, and cover an entire area of side effects, which means forum readers considering to get that extraordinary value out of 6400 OC (agree it's extraordinary), should also properly understand the price they have to pay in other things than just raw $$$. Which isn't to say many of them shouldn't do it, especially gamers with low budgets who would not use their rigs for anything else anyway.

On a side note, I'd like to thank VirtualLarry, who was one of the few forum members with an oc system that also talked about it's limitations.

 

[AtenRa]

Intel Core i3 530 review from Anand

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2921/6

Between $60 - $100 you have the Athlon II X2. Then at $100 - $130 you can go with either an i3 or an Athlon II X4. Between $130 and $200 you have a number of Phenom II X4 choices that make sense. And at $200 and above it’s all Lynnfield/Bloomfield. Everyone gets a piece of the pie, Intel just gets the more expensive price points (which to AMD’s credit, aren’t high volume sellers anyway).

AMD technically has the best product at one of the most important price points - $150. Maybe I’m reading too much into this but the competition here just seems...clean.

There you have it. If you want a dual-core processor at around $130, the Core i3 530 is as good as it gets. Competition without killing AMD. I like it.

It feels like deja vu 😉

 

[AtenRa]

Well, we are now - when people claim other CPUs aren't worth their asking price based on a comparison with overclocked 6400.

Personally I'm publicly against the BCLK overclock for one reason only - people tend to emphasize the clear benefit while forgetting to mention all the downsides. They are important this time around, and cover an entire area of side effects, which means forum readers considering to get that extraordinary value out of 6400 OC (agree it's extraordinary), should also properly understand the price they have to pay in other things than just raw $$$. Which isn't to say many of them shouldn't do it, especially gamers with low budgets who would not use their rigs for anything else anyway.

On a side note, I'd like to thank VirtualLarry, who was one of the few forum members with an oc system that also talked about it's limitations.

I have always acknowledge the limitations of the BCLK OC Skylake CPUs, but for the vast majority of users that are willing to OC by using this method, loosing the iGPU or AVX speed is not a concern because they are using a dGPU and non of the Games today support AVX. Back in the days of the lock PCI we were willing to loose the HDD and every file we had in order to OC as much as we could, today people are talking about loosing the iGPU that most of them here dont even use.

Any way, the point is that competition is good for us the consumers and it seems better days are coming 😉

 

[VirtualLarry]

It would be nice, if Ryzen provided enough competition, that Intel decided to "unlocked" the multipliers on ALL of their CPUs. (OK, maybe not Celeron / Pentium.)

 

[greatnoob]

This might actually be good for people use emulators. The single threaded performance of this when overclocked is very good and at a cheaper price than an i5k and i7k processor. Apart from that, I can't think of any other reason why anybody would get this. Probably a niche product for a niche pseudo-enthusiast market.

 

[Arachnotronic]

It would be nice, if Ryzen provided enough competition, that Intel decided to "unlocked" the multipliers on ALL of their CPUs. (OK, maybe not Celeron / Pentium.)

That is NOT what the OEMs want. The OEMs don't want to be selling people computers with unlocked multipliers across the board, this would hurt them as they tend to make a lot of money from up-selling consumers to higher end CPUs. Also, Intel doesn't want to deal with the headache of unscrupulous OEMs buying cheaper CPUs, pre-overclocking them, and then selling them to customers as higher grade CPUs.

Remember that the PC business is quite cutthroat so if one OEM is selling pre-overclocked CPUs against an honest competitor using higher-end SKUs, the honest competitor is at a disadvantage (either forced to accept lower margins or lower unit sales at higher prices) compared to the dishonest one.

 

[crashtech]

It's easy enough to supply a PC that doesn't allow OCing in the BIOS, so really OEMs couldn't really care too much about a functionality that they won't enable.

 

[LTC8K6]

That is NOT what the OEMs want. The OEMs don't want to be selling people computers with unlocked multipliers across the board, this would hurt them as they tend to make a lot of money from up-selling consumers to higher end CPUs. Also, Intel doesn't want to deal with the headache of unscrupulous OEMs buying cheaper CPUs, pre-overclocking them, and then selling them to customers as higher grade CPUs.

Remember that the PC business is quite cutthroat so if one OEM is selling pre-overclocked CPUs against an honest competitor using higher-end SKUs, the honest competitor is at a disadvantage (either forced to accept lower margins or lower unit sales at higher prices) compared to the dishonest one.

But only the more expensive boards allow overclocking. So trying to overclock a cheaper Intel chip to cut overall system prices doesn't seem workable. Seems like the seller with the regular chip and the cheap board will win the price battle.

 

[TheELF]

But only the more expensive boards allow overclocking. So trying to overclock a cheaper Intel chip to cut overall system prices doesn't seem workable. Seems like the seller with the regular chip and the cheap board will win the price battle.

Every cheap ass motherboard allows for setting the multiplier for the turbo,if the CPUs where unlocked they would allow for at least basic overclocking only through that,you wouldn't be able to push it as far as with a Z board but you would be able to push it to the normal limits. (like 4.4/4.5 is for skylake)

 

[AtenRa]

1. OEM systems never had OC features
2. Only retail boards have OC features
3. Only Enthusiasts buy high-end OC Motherboards
4. Only Enthusiasts would spend $50 more for an Unlocked OCable CPU

5. Intel knows that, its why they asking $50 more for the K series for the last 6 years (since SandyBridge 2011).

 

[LTC8K6]

Every cheap ass motherboard allows for setting the multiplier for the turbo,if the CPUs where unlocked they would allow for at least basic overclocking only through that,you wouldn't be able to push it as far as with a Z board but you would be able to push it to the normal limits. (like 4.4/4.5 is for skylake)

Not any more. I used to be able to set the multiplier to the turbo number and get all 4 cores to run at that speed under load with my non-z boards, but that went away with the BIOS/Microcode updates that ended non-z overclocking. Used to be able to run a 4790S at 4.0 or an E3-1231-V3 at 3.8

 

[TheELF]

Not any more. I used to be able to set the multiplier to the turbo number and get all 4 cores to run at that speed under load with my non-z boards, but that went away with the BIOS/Microcode updates that ended non-z overclocking. Used to be able to run a 4790S at 4.0 or an E3-1231-V3 at 3.8

Damn microcodes...get off my lawn!
Ah well, so back to hacking (the bios) it is.