Monday, January 24th 2022

Intel Not Happy About BCLK Overclocking of 12th Gen CPUs, Warns of Damage

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Jan 24th, 2022 06:41 Updated: Jan 24th, 2022 08:10 Discuss (139 Comments)

You may, or may not have noticed that in certain parts of the interweb, groups of people that are generally referred to as "Overclockers" have managed to get their cheap Celeron G6900's and Core i3-12100's to run at much higher clock speeds than Intel intended and now the company is unhappy about it, as they're anticipating that they're going to lose sales of more expensive CPUs. As such, Intel has issued a warning via Tom's Hardware
"Intel's 12th Gen non-K processors were not designed for overclocking. Intel does not warranty the operation of processors beyond their specifications. Altering clock frequency or voltage may damage or reduce the useful life of the processor and other system components, and may reduce system stability and performance."

Jokes aside, the lower end SKU's of Intel's 12th gen Alder Lake CPUs seem to be phenomenal overclockers, if you have the right motherboards. If the motherboard doesn't have an external clock gen, plus support for adjusting the BCLK on non-K CPUs, then you're not going to have much luck. This means, at least at the moment, that you're looking at fairly pricey Z690 motherboard, although there are rumors that we can expect the odd B660 motherboard that will get an external clock gen, with at least three models already reported to have BCLK adjustment support via beta UEFI updates. Pro Overclockers have already managed to hit speeds in excess of 5.3 GHz with the Celeron G6900 and that is only by adjusting the BCLK and the Voltage, which is no mean feat, as the CPU has fixed clock speed of 3.4 GHz, which makes this a 57 percent boost in clock speed. Intel is said to be looking into this unintended ability to overclock these CPU SKUs and is apparently looking at locking down this ability with a new microcode update in a future UEFI release.

Update: Added a screenshot from TPU's upcoming Core i3-12100F review, showing 5.2 GHz at 130 MHz BCLK.

Source: Tom's Hardware

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139 Comments on Intel Not Happy About BCLK Overclocking of 12th Gen CPUs, Warns of Damage

#51

TheinsanegamerN

MetroidTrue, what I like about amd is that they never make you buy a new motherboard if they release a new cpu,

Except for X370, B350, A320 users, they got told to suckle upon AMD's teat and go buy a new motherboard if they wanted a 3000 series or 5000 series, and that onyl got backtracked when the internet blew up and threw their "support until 2020" promise back in their face. Oh and dont forget the B450 users who want ryzeen 5000.

Metroidintel does that everytime

Intel is pretty clear that each socket gets 2 generations of CPU. It's not a surprise, and VERY few people upgrade every generation.

Metroidand idiots buying it make them get away with the bs,

You know what's BS? Stating your socket is supported until 2020 then backtracking on that TWICE.

MetroidThat is capitalism right? we always support the underdog because the one at the top is screwing us anyway they can because they are in an advantageous position like intel did for years and amd before intel, amd was bad too from 2002 to 2006 and then Intel came and blew anything amd had and then amd did almost the same in 2020, yeah they dont care about us or anybody however, i still side with amd as little bit better because of a non motherboard swap every new cpu release. Yeah I will likely need to buy a new motherboard for the new ryzen because of ddr5 but if amd try a intel move and say we need to buy a new motherboard every cpu release then I'm out too and by the way I dont care about them either, not a fanboy, I dont buy things blindly, I'm just a smart consumer.

Yeah you should buy into AM5, right at the beginning, so when AMD leaves you high and dry after 1 more release you can perform olympic level mental gymnastics to explain how this is any different from what intel does.

#52

docnorth

claster17If PCIe is independent then NVMe is as well. SATA and USB should be a similar story since both are connected to the PCH which runs on DMI which is also PCIe.

Makes sense. Thanks.

#53

Metroid

TheinsanegamerNExcept for X370, B350, A320 users, they got told to suckle upon AMD's teat and go buy a new motherboard if they wanted a 3000 series or 5000 series, and that onyl got backtracked when the internet blew up and threw their "support until 2020" promise back in their face. Oh and dont forget the B450 users who want ryzeen 5000.

Intel is pretty clear that each socket gets 2 generations of CPU. It's not a surprise, and VERY few people upgrade every generation.

You know what's BS? Stating your socket is supported until 2020 then backtracking on that TWICE.

Yeah you should buy into AM5, right at the beginning, so when AMD leaves you high and dry after 1 more release you can perform olympic level mental gymnastics to explain how this is any different from what intel does.

I'm not going to reply to everything because if I do we will take this discussion past my bedtime, about the last thing you wrote, I prefer to take my chances with am5 than intel lga 1200, then we will see who will spend less money in motherboards in 5 years time.

#54

TheinsanegamerN

MetroidI'm not going to reply to everything because if I do we will take this discussion past my bedtime, about the last thing you wrote, I prefer to take my chances with am5 than intel lga 1200, then we will see who will spend less money in motherboards in 5 years time.

Why would you upgrade either in 5 years? CPUs from 10 years ago can still maintain 60 FPS average in modern titles. Any modern 6-8 core CPU is going to easily last a full decade, if not longer.

Like, you could have bought a ryzen 1700x, then a 3700x, then a 5800x, upgrading twice, if you bought an AMD X370 motherboard you would have had to buy a new 500 series board to get that second jump, and after ALL that, you get the same game averages that the 8700k was getting in 2017, and unless you are gaming at 1080p144+ none of them will have any appreciable difference anyway. If you wait 5 years, there is going to be new technology out, like NVMe, or DDR5, or newer PCIe revisions, or USB C, and you'll need a new mobo for these anyway.

#55

Metroid

TheinsanegamerNWhy would you upgrade either in 5 years? CPUs from 10 years ago can still maintain 60 FPS average in modern titles. Any modern 6-8 core CPU is going to easily last a full decade, if not longer.

Like, you could have bought a ryzen 1700x, then a 3700x, then a 5800x, upgrading twice, if you bought an AMD X370 motherboard you would have had to buy a new 500 series board to get that second jump, and after ALL that, you get the same game averages that the 8700k was getting in 2017, and unless you are gaming at 1080p144+ none of them will have any appreciable difference anyway. If you wait 5 years, there is going to be new technology out, like NVMe, or DDR5, or newer PCIe revisions, or USB C, and you'll need a new mobo for these anyway.

Yeah I totally agree with you but the idea that I can as long as possible use that motherboard for new cpu releases is what makes my buy great, remember what I said, I'm just a smart consumer, meaning the one company that offers the best deal then I'm in and sadly Intel has not been the one for a long time, reason these past years I have not been buying Intel cpus or motherboards, for intel to make me to buy a new motherboard and cpu from them, It has to be an exceptional good deal because I know how they behave based on how they behaved in the past. I was not blind to jump into amd and buy a 5900x, before that I bought a r5 3600 and I had a b450 msi gaming plus which I used with the ryzen 5900x. Want me to keep buying your products? then do not **** me.

#56

yeeeeman

This will become a huge thing IF ASUS decides to launch a H610 motherboard with DDR4 and BCLK OC at under 100 bucks.

#57

TheUn4seen

This is a very dangerous activity, affecting corporate income.

#58

AusWolf

Vayra86You're just old. Today, overclocking is epeening about your 5.5 Ghz 241W power guzzler when in fact it won't sustain there for any longer than a second, can't remotely handle anything with the letters AVX at that frequency, and god forbid you run Prime95 on it because how dare you present that surrealistic load on a current day CPU, come on, you know they're not built to handle that. I mean, Intel even said so, on multiple occasions and mobo vendors even gave you the setting :roll::kookoo:

Snowflake OCs, I call them. The value of them is their presence in a christmas tree box with AIO showing those glorious numbers so you can look at your window all day. What do you mean, workloads? This is a consumer CPU. It idles. At best it records a benchmark or Youtube video.

How accurate! :roll:

To be serious, not that you really need to OC a modern CPU or GPU anyway. The extra 100 MHz you sweat blood to squeeze out of it will only mean it works way out of its ideal temperature/power range without you feeling a thing in everyday programs and games.

#59

mechtech

Chrispy_People who BCLK overlclock are a weird breed; The gains have been minimal to negligible for about a decade now and the instability and weird issues caused by something unhappy with a BCLK overclock aren't worth the almost imperceptible increase in performance.

Back in the old days when the FSB was decoupled from the rest of the system by a multiplier, you could exploit that multiplier fantastically. These days, ~100MHz is the rule. Go much beyond 103MHz BCLK and you're basically asking for trouble with most configs. There are much better and cost effective ways to get 3% more performance so unless you have already narrowed down which was the best 12900K in terms of silicon lottery from a batch of several, and are just LN2 overclocking for a record attempt, there is no merit to it - the money invested in specific motherboard/RAM that's likely to hold a stable BCLK overclock is better spent on a faster CPU or better cooling.

On top of that, those who want/need real performance aren't going to be buying a celeron :|

#60

seth1911

Im customer i dont care about a company thing, if its t my positivity but u can trow BCLK OC to garbage since socket 1155.
Intel made it imposible to oc via BCLK or say u would damage......

The reality why u cant oc via BCLK since 1155 is cause intel will sell u even higher priced chips,
there is no reason why i can oc a 1st gen I3 on 1156 to 4.6 GHz via BCLK but the I3 2120 on 1155 not cause the BCLK is locked.

Atm since nearly 13 years its easy if i need a high Single Thread performance,
i cant get it i needed to buy a garbage G3258 or 9300K in the past and a Z Board.

#61

Chrispy_

Vayra86You're just old. Today, overclocking is epeening about your 5.5 Ghz 241W power guzzler when in fact it won't sustain there for any longer than a second, can't remotely handle anything with the letters AVX at that frequency, and god forbid you run Prime95 on it because how dare you present that surrealistic load on a current day CPU, come on, you know they're not built to handle that. I mean, Intel even said so, on multiple occasions and mobo vendors even gave you the setting :roll::kookoo:

Snowflake OCs, I call them. The value of them is their presence in a christmas tree box with AIO showing those glorious numbers so you can look at your window all day. What do you mean, workloads? This is a consumer CPU. It idles. At best it records a benchmark or Youtube video.

Yeah, the last CPU I bought that was worth overclocking was a 2500K, before Z-series motherboards were mandated for K-series chips adding yet more unnecessary cost to getting your "free" performance (that you had to pay extra for)

That P67 board took a 3.3GHz chip to 5.1GHz all core, though at frankly harmful voltages and untenable temperatures for summer. My daily driver OC was 4.8GHz at 1.4V on a NH-U12 air cooler. You were super-unlucky if your 2500K didn't clock to at least 4.5GHz. Most would do that on stock voltage with the wimpy intel boxed cooler.

Since then, overclocking has been taxed excessively at purchase for the snowflake influencers. Through Haswell, Zen2, Zen3 I've not overclocked. AMD may have been less restrictive about overclocking but you still have to buy a premium model and the 3600X was poor performance/$ compared to the 3600. My 3900X and 5800X have PBO+ disabled. Regular boosting within the TDP is plenty for me and a silent, stable 4.5-4.8GHz boost is better than 4.95GHz of overvolted madness and kiss goodbye to all of your power savings and quiet operation.

Maybe I'm old, or maybe I'm just not dumb enough to throw performance/$ and performance/W out of the window just to get an extra 10% at most. Having the fastest is pointless anyway because tomorrow something faster will get launched with the never-ending march of progress.

#62

lexluthermiester

DuxCroIntel: Please don't OC your CPU's via BCLK. It may cause damage to YOUR HARDWARE.

Fixed that for you. Folks this is real. For those of you wanting to BCLK OC, the word around the water tower is to keep it at 118mhz max to avoid permanent damage to your hardware.

Don't say no one warned you.

#63

Cutechri

I have never dared touch BCLK overclocking, this solidifies it.

The i3-12100F already seemed like a gaming beast for the money in reviews, this just makes it seem ridiculous lol

#64

Aquinus

Resident Wat-man

lexluthermiesterpermanent damage to your hardware.

I thought that it's voltages and heat that kill hardware. Higher frequencies without touching voltage should either work or be unstable. Either way, doesn't higher end hardware push these kinds of voltages and currents anyways? The main issue in the past was that touching the base clock impacted other clock domains, like PCIe and DMI. If memory is happy and temps are under control, shouldn't it be okay?

#65

Cutechri

Chrispy_Since then, overclocking has been taxed excessively at purchase for the snowflake influencers. Through Haswell, Zen2, Zen3 I've not overclocked. AMD may have been less restrictive about overclocking but you still have to buy a premium model and the 3600X was poor performance/$ compared to the 3600. My 3900X and 5800X have PBO+ disabled. Regular boosting within the TDP is plenty for me and a silent, stable 4.5-4.8GHz boost is better than 4.95GHz of overvolted madness and kiss goodbye to all of your power savings and quiet operation.

Exactly. I run my 5900X stock and I couldn't be happier. I see it reach 5.2 GHz on some cores.

#66

Chrispy_

CutechriExactly. I run my 5900X stock and I couldn't be happier. I see it reach 5.2 GHz on some cores.

But but but but but if you buy an $800 ROG Crosshair Extreme VIII+ GTX Godlike Edition and sink another $250 on a 420mm AIO you might see 5.3GHz!

#67

Cutechri

Chrispy_But but but but but if you buy an $800 ROG Crosshair Extreme VIII+ GTX Godlike Edition and sink another $250 on a 420mm AIO you might see 5.3GHz!

To an extent I don't understand AIOs, why ditch my perfectly fine, extremely silent Noctua cooler for a louder AIO just to get a slight decrease in temperatures? The CPU isn't exactly underperforming and the AIO won't bring huge performance increases. I don't monitor my temperatures all the time while I use my PC. I use it to do my tasks and play games. And air coolers are way more reliable.

I suppose there's the looks argument to be made and yeah AIOs can look better (looks are subjective - I personally dig the look of rugged heatpipes and fin arrays), but for general functionality, it still puzzles me.

#68

lexluthermiester

AquinusI thought that it's voltages and heat that kill hardware. Higher frequencies without touching voltage should either work or be unstable.

And this is why the BCLK OC are dangerous. The CPU automatically manages it's voltage internally and it does not expect the BCLK to be out of spec. Forcing the BCLK too high seems to have an effect that causes the CPU dramatically overvolt itself internally, thus causing damage. Granted, this is only the current theory. It's up to Intel to verify what is actually going on.

AquinusEither way, doesn't higher end hardware push these kinds of voltages and currents anyways?

There's something more fine-grained happening.

AquinusThe main issue in the past was that touching the base clock impacted other clock domains, like PCIe and DMI. If memory is happy and temps are under control, shouldn't it be okay?

You'd think, but it seems to have some complicated nuances going on that have yet to be fleshed out.

#69

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator

Of course they're unhappy, they arent charging money for this 'feature'

londisteOutside this being Intel - BCLK overclocking is not exactly safe and can damage other components if pushed far enough. External clock generators should not change anything in this, it is just a measure to circumvent whatever manufacturer has implemented to prevent BCLK overclocking.

RAM, PCIe, NVMe, SATA, USB and most other things that do run in sync with BCLK do need to be able to deal with increased frequencies somehow. 1-2% change might not cause many disruptions but beyond that it gets increasingly more crapshoot. And no, the problems you get may not be simple or obvious :D

unsure if someone else answered, but thats the point of an external clock generator - the other devices can stay at stock bclk speeds, with only the CPU (and DRAM) going up

Vayra86:
You're just old. Today, overclocking is epeening about your 5.5 Ghz 241W power guzzler when in fact it won't sustain there for any longer than a second, can't remotely handle anything with the letters AVX at that frequency, and god forbid you run Prime95 on it because how dare you present that surrealistic load on a current day CPU, come on, you know they're not built to handle that. I mean, Intel even said so, on multiple occasions and mobo vendors even gave you the setting :roll::kookoo:

Snowflake OCs, I call them. The value of them is their presence in a christmas tree box with AIO showing those glorious numbers so you can look at your window all day. What do you mean, workloads? This is a consumer CPU. It idles. At best it records a benchmark or Youtube video.

I love that, snowflake OC's. I've also seen and had issues with people doing stupidly high wattage overclocks that are barely stable, for just short bursts of performance... and the systems keel over and die if they continue using it long term, or if something as simple as high ambients come along

Snowflake OC is the perfect name, because the moment they're exposed to heat the entire thing has a meltdown

#70

mechtech

Chrispy_Yeah, the last CPU I bought that was worth overclocking was a 2500K, before Z-series motherboards were mandated for K-series chips adding yet more unnecessary cost to getting your "free" performance (that you had to pay extra for)

That P67 board took a 3.3GHz chip to 5.1GHz all core, though at frankly harmful voltages and untenable temperatures for summer. My daily driver OC was 4.8GHz at 1.4V on a NH-U12 air cooler. You were super-unlucky if your 2500K didn't clock to at least 4.5GHz. Most would do that on stock voltage with the wimpy intel boxed cooler.

Since then, overclocking has been taxed excessively at purchase for the snowflake influencers. Through Haswell, Zen2, Zen3 I've not overclocked. AMD may have been less restrictive about overclocking but you still have to buy a premium model and the 3600X was poor performance/$ compared to the 3600. My 3900X and 5800X have PBO+ disabled. Regular boosting within the TDP is plenty for me and a silent, stable 4.5-4.8GHz boost is better than 4.95GHz of overvolted madness and kiss goodbye to all of your power savings and quiet operation.

Maybe I'm old, or maybe I'm just not dumb enough to throw performance/$ and performance/W out of the window just to get an extra 10% at most. Having the fastest is pointless anyway because tomorrow something faster will get launched with the never-ending march of progress.

nah, we call that wise ;)

#71

Minus Infinity

Apparently the bclk has been been decoupled in Alder Lake, it only affects cpu, memory and ring bus. it won't affect system stability. Intel's just p!ssed they can't screw you for a K series processor. I see no point in K series on AL, OC'ing is a waste of energy. I'd take a non-K Raptor Lake cpu for sure and maybe tweak bclk a bit if base clocks are much lower than the K's.

#72

Crackong

WoW
This makes 12400 the king of Alder Lake , every SKU above is just waste of sand.

#73

AusWolf

Chrispy_Yeah, the last CPU I bought that was worth overclocking was a 2500K, before Z-series motherboards were mandated for K-series chips adding yet more unnecessary cost to getting your "free" performance (that you had to pay extra for)

That P67 board took a 3.3GHz chip to 5.1GHz all core, though at frankly harmful voltages and untenable temperatures for summer. My daily driver OC was 4.8GHz at 1.4V on a NH-U12 air cooler. You were super-unlucky if your 2500K didn't clock to at least 4.5GHz. Most would do that on stock voltage with the wimpy intel boxed cooler.

Since then, overclocking has been taxed excessively at purchase for the snowflake influencers. Through Haswell, Zen2, Zen3 I've not overclocked. AMD may have been less restrictive about overclocking but you still have to buy a premium model and the 3600X was poor performance/$ compared to the 3600. My 3900X and 5800X have PBO+ disabled. Regular boosting within the TDP is plenty for me and a silent, stable 4.5-4.8GHz boost is better than 4.95GHz of overvolted madness and kiss goodbye to all of your power savings and quiet operation.

Maybe I'm old, or maybe I'm just not dumb enough to throw performance/$ and performance/W out of the window just to get an extra 10% at most. Having the fastest is pointless anyway because tomorrow something faster will get launched with the never-ending march of progress.

Honestly, I've always found the term "free performance" funny. A K-series CPU, a Z-series motherboard, an overkill cooler... 300 bucks down the toilet when you could just buy a tier (or 2 tiers) higher CPU. :laugh:

#74

Cutechri

AusWolfHonestly, I've always found the term "free performance" funny. A K-series CPU, a Z-series motherboard, an overkill cooler... 300 bucks down the toilet when you could just buy a tier (or 2 tiers) higher CPU. :laugh:

The biggest performance improvement I got on my 3900X was upgrading to a 5900X.

#75

Unregistered

So as i thought, with my 12700k, i can do a combination of multi and BCLK fo OC. Say lower multi and higher BCLK, which does open some tweaking options. But for non K it is a boon, i can see why Intel are pissed. If they had coupled the BCLK this would not be possible.

It doesn't apply to Alder Lake either, base clock overclocking works perfectly fine. Z690 uses the PCIe clock gen for it's PLL. No issues with SATA drives, NVMe drives connected to the chipset, or USB.

Minus InfinityApparently the bclk has been been decoupled in Alder Lake, it only affects cpu, memory and ring bus. it won't affect system stability. Intel's just p!ssed they can't screw you for a K series processor. I see no point in K series on AL, OC'ing is a waste of energy. I'd take a non-K Raptor Lake cpu for sure and maybe tweak bclk a bit if base clocks are much lower than the K's.

So would there be a limit to the BCLK frequency? i saw Der8auer had it as high as 137 with seemingly no problem with the 12400. How does overclocking on non K ADL handle the BCLK Governor?

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Intel Not Happy About BCLK Overclocking of 12th Gen CPUs, Warns of Damage

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