Intel has officially pulled the plug on third-party motherboard BIOS
tweaks which, for a brief time, allowed people to circumvent the
multiplier locks on its less expensive CPUs. Intel has reserved
overclocking for its premium 6th-generation 'Skylake' Core i5 and i7
processors, but enterprising third parties found ways to push even
locked models beyond their rated speeds. Motherboard manufacturers
including ASRock, MSI, Asus and Gigabyte began promoting these features
very shortly after Intel launched its Skylake generation chips for
desktops in late 2015.
Enthusiasts were of course overjoyed, as the
cost of overclocking was drastically reduced. Intel never supported
these modifications and has maintained its position that pushing the performance of
processors not explicitly sold as overclockable will void their
warranty, but has now decided to formally close the loophole.
An
upcoming microcode update for motherboard manufacturers will strengthen
the BCLK (base clock) restrictions on CPUs whose model numbers do
not have the K suffix. These companies in turn will have to use the
updated microcode in any EFI-BIOS updates that they issue in the future.
The company released a statement to PCWorld, saying "Intel regularly issues updates for our processors which our partners
voluntarily incorporate into their BIOS. The
latest update provided to partners includes, among other things, code
that aligns with the position that we do not recommend overclocking
processors that have not been designed to do so. Additionally, Intel
does not warranty the operation of the processor beyond its
specifications."
Intel
cannot directly force users to update, which means that those who have
already taken advantage of the loophole do have the option of continuing
to do so, but only at the cost of future updates and security fixes -
including a fix for the recently discovered Prime95 bug. Motherboards
currently sold as supporting non-K overclocking are not likely to remain
in the market for long and it is unlikely that any new models will not incorporate the new code.
Overclocking became relatively easier on
Skylake processors because Intel decoupled the BCLK from other system
clocks, including the PCIe bus and memory bus, which previously became
unstable when the BCLK was pushed.
Some overclocking enthusiasts
regularly try pushing commodity hardware to unimagined new speeds using
exotic cooling mechanisms and often physically modifying them, in order
to break records. Others simply enjoy the satisfaction of getting more
out of what they have bought. Intel thus restricts official overclocking
to its most expensive offerings. Lower-end CPUs such as the Core i3 and
Pentium series are never overclockable, with the notable exception of
the one-off Pentium Anniversary Edition (Review) CPU in 2014.
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