Intel CPUS to be more overclock friendly

[NoobyDoo]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-cpus-overclocked-sandy-easy-ivy-easier-haswell-easiest-/13733.html

According to the stuff seen at the IDF, Ivy Bridge CPUs decouple the main clock finally, following what the coming Sandy Bridge - E Socket 2011 is also implementing. Now, you can overclock the cores and memory without worrying about affecting the I/O and PCIe clocks. But then comes the more interesting piece news.

A year later, in early 2013, the pinnacle of Intel's 22 nm process show off, the initial Haswell processor, is expected to go another step further, where CPU core, GPU, memory, PCI and DMI ratios are all set independently here, on top of fine grain BCLK base clock available within the Lynx Point chipset. Also, due to its fully integrated voltage regulator circuitry for simplified platform design, more stable power delivery and therefore more predictable overclocking could be achieved. Add to it the expected major improvements in memory DIMM layout topology, enabling great performance even with 2 DIMMs per channel without the usual penalties compared to just 1 DIMM per channel.

Now, this would be as far as one can go in overclock friendliness on a mainstream platform, and, knowing that the sources were confirming the likelihood of combined multiple CPU and multiple GPU cores on Haswell (i.e. you could have, say, 4 CPU cores and 2 GPU cores, or 2 CPU cores and 3 GPU cores chip), would create possibly the most flexible desktop - and mobile - platform Intel, or anyone else, ever had in one socket.

 

[alyarb]

wewt

 

[IlllI]

my fear is ib will be pushed back since bd is not going to rival them in the near future.

 

[Vdubchaos]

How much more overclock friendly can they possibly be?

I5 and I7 are overclock monsters.

Heck I just got 2500k and I dont even see a reason to overclock.....and I believe people are doing low 4s on air!!!

 

[Rvenger]

Ivybridge sounds like its gonna be fun to tweak. Can't wait, I just hope the pricing stays in line with Sandybridge

 

[sangyup81]

Good choice Intel!

 

[Kaekae]

my fear is ib will be pushed back since bd is not going to rival them in the near future.

This sounds very true, but this makes me very sad.

 

[jvroig]

How much more overclock friendly can they possibly be?

By allowing us to overclock not only the "K" parts with unlocked multipliers.

In fact, it says so right in the quote in the OP - by giving us back the ability to overclock through the BCLK without fear of instability due to also affecting the I/O and PCIe clocks.

This means, even low-end i3 and i5 processors will be overclockable again. Imagine today's cheap $100 i3 2100, and overclocking it to 4GHz. That's tremendous value.

That's how they will be more overclock friendly, instead of forcing overclocking only on expensive parts as Anand seemed to voice out against in his BD article closing remarks.

 

[Maximilian]

Sounds great, thats what overclocking was originally about anyways taking cheap crap and turning into something much better. Not to knock sandy bridge but since it was released overclocking became taking something that was already an amazing performer and making it more amazing.

 

[Idontcare]

How much more overclock friendly can they possibly be?

They could warranty their products even if overclocked (pipe dream, I know)

 

[StrangerGuy]

I bet IB i3 and lower chips are still going to be dual-core which will still be pretty meh when OCed.

 

[R4in]

and I believe people are doing low 4s on air!!!

Some people are claiming to hit 5.2 on air, now how stable this is and how long they can run it....thats another story.

 

[Rvenger]

I would love to buy the cheapest quad core and overclock it but it needs to overclock better than my 2600k while gaining better performance.

 

[Spikesoldier]

thanks for listening to us intel, you really did give us the F.U. when you locked down the bclk.

glad OCing and minute tweaking isnt dead as feared by some.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I basically have enough in paypal sitting: that I haven't touched, to put together a SandyBridge Z68 system/platform (CPU, MB, RAM). I recently got a little more out of my i7 920 and am now running 4010MHz. So basically for what I can get out of my current platform is anything extra I have to invest on a Z68 rig. What would you do? It's basically for a gaming setup

 

[bunnyfubbles]

How much more overclock friendly can they possibly be?

I5 and I7 are overclock monsters.

Heck I just got 2500k and I dont even see a reason to overclock.....and I believe people are doing low 4s on air!!!

SB is extremely BCLK limited (can only add a few extra to tweak your final clockrate) and of course you need a K series to really overclock at all, otherwise you're limited to your non K SB's max turbo limit

with IB it looks like we'll be able to go wild with the BCLK (although I'd imagine intel might lock that down or limit it for non K users) meaning we'll have another tool to toy with in terms of tweaking the overall performance of our system.

upping BCLK will potentially net more performance clock for clock, so IB will have not just IPC and sheer clock rate advantage over SB, but also BCLK advantage.

Right now it sounds like great news, but it might be foreboding in that its possible IB might not hit the IPC or sheer clockrates we've come to expect and thus Intel is compensating by providing BCLK tweaking, but for now I'm remaining optimistic.

 

[Concillian]

How much more overclock friendly can they possibly be?

I5 and I7 are overclock monsters.

Heck I just got 2500k and I dont even see a reason to overclock.....and I believe people are doing low 4s on air!!!

They can have provisions for people who know what their doing and don't need the handholding of the k chips to OC by doing what we've done for the last couple decades.

The structure and segmentation of the SB market is primarily what has kept me on my i3-540 rather than upgrading to something SB. I've always been a tock kind of guy anyway, but not having to pay $200+ for a CPU that outperforms my ~$100 OC'ed i3-540 would be icing on the cake for IB.

 

[Concillian]

So basically for what I can get out of my current platform is anything extra I have to invest on a Z68 rig. What would you do? It's basically for a gaming setup

Are you playing any games that you notice performance isn't adequate with?
If no --> do not buy a new gaming platform
If yes --> turn off some video options... is it any better?
If no --> upgrade your CPU
If yes --> run lower video settings or upgrade your video card.

But really, there's not any games that are CPU limited by a S1366 quad @ 4 GHz. At least none that I've seen... Wait for IB to upgrade, run a more modest OC, then watch your power bill drop, lol.