Why Not To Buy Intel? They're Limiting Overclocking

[MpG]

Originally Posted by Linus

We've heard the same thing with the last few Intel platform releases. Let's see how this pans out ;)

Agreed. When I saw the topic, I double-checked first to make sure this wasn't an instance of thread-necro.

But even if it actually holds true, I don't know I could actually blame Intel. This isn't their enthusiast line of products, and they're not actually under any obligation to let us overclock by a single Hz. Heck, they could even renegotiate that into all their future chipset sales to mobo makers.

[Zero82z]

From Intel's perspective it's a fantastic move, since it will make motherboard design simpler and cheaper. Obviously it sucks for enthusiasts, but let's be realistic; the vast majority of Intel's sales come from people who won't be overclocking anyway, and if they can make a few more bucks from each of their sales to one of those people, it'll more than make up for any losses in the enthusiast segment. And for those of us who really want to overclock, we'll still have the K-series and Extreme Edition CPUs, and hopefully we'll still be able to overclock the LGA2011 platform normally.

[b1lk1]

This is old old news and of no surprise. Intel has been telling us that Sandybridge will be impossible to overclock. THese are budget CPU's. Besides, if they actually make it difficult to overclock then it may actually be fun to try and do it again. I haven't bothered overclocking anything for the last few years other than the basic auto overclocking in BIOS.

[Sagath]

So overclocking will consist of dialing in a multiplier and hoping you can do 23 since your buddy can only do 22?

So much for this 'art'. I took pride on the fact I could teach myself something that others couldnt do. Guess now I'm just another sheeple. :(

[Delavan]

INTEL got their biggest advantage over AMD with their higher Overclocking abilities. We all know OCing is not to be taken for granted, void your warranty and all that crap...Intel played stupid for a long time, but they knew what they were doing ,they "opened the valves", they sold a lot more CPUs that way....

If they're in a mood to start reducing OCing abilities of their CPUs, whatever, enthusiasts might jump ship...as simple as that.

I don't care, if INTEL wants to start playing " Party poopers"
my next CPU would be a 1055T/1090T upcoming variant...

[SugarJ]

I'm guessing that Sandybridge will be their mainstream platform, and that Intel will still have an enthusiast platform, much like the P55/X58. Their problem is they made the P55 platform too close in performance to the X58 this go-around.

[Zero82z]

Originally Posted by SugarJ

I'm guessing that Sandybridge will be their mainstream platform, and that Intel will still have an enthusiast platform, much like the P55/X58. Their problem is they made the P55 platform too close in performance to the X58 this go-around.

Sandy Bridge is an architecture, not a platform. This issue specifically concerns the mainstream LGA1155 platform, which is basically equivalent to LGA1156 for the Nehalem architecture. Whether they do something similar with LGA2011 (the LGA1366 equivalent) remains to be seen.

[SugarJ]

Originally Posted by Zero82z

Sandy Bridge is an architecture, not a platform. This issue specifically concerns the mainstream LGA1155 platform, which is basically equivalent to LGA1156 for the Nehalem architecture. Whether they do something similar with LGA2011 (the LGA1366 equivalent) remains to be seen.

My misnaming aside, my point still stands. I can see them locking down overclocking on their mainstream platforms in order to push enthusiasts to the X68 platform. Right now, most people have no reason to buy X58 over P55 unless you want a 6-core processor or are a LN2 overclocker.

[CroSsFiRe2009]

Hopefully X68 won't cost an arm and a leg but with the way things are going I wouldnt be surprised if its insanely expensive
Intel plans to deliberately limit Sandy Bridge overclocking | bit-tech.net

[SugarJ]

Bingo. Quote from bit-tech article above:

"also mirror what we've heard and go further to include details Intel's upcoming LGA2011 Sandy Bridge-E and 'Patsburg' chipset that will replace the current X58 and LGA1366 platforms.

According to HKEPC the upper limit DDR3 support currently exceeds 2,666MHz (wowzers) and most importantly follows previous current generations basic designs so overclocking potential is unaffected, yet, unspecified."

So mainstream LGA1155 chipsets won't be able to overclock except with -K unlocked multiplier chips, and the LGA2011 chipsets should maintain the current type of Bclk OC'ing. Thus there will be a reason for the price difference between the next gen P67 and X68 chipset boards, unlike the current generation with overlocking capabilities. But my guess is that we won't see $300 LGA2011 CPU's. Intel is probably going to hit us enthusiasts hard on the pricing.