Monday, January 24th 2022
Intel Not Happy About BCLK Overclocking of 12th Gen CPUs, Warns of Damage
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
"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.
139 Comments on Intel Not Happy About BCLK Overclocking of 12th Gen CPUs, Warns of Damage
Intel chooses to segment their market more with their offerings, we can complain about it all we want but it does business sense to do so - it also helps with markting because K-skus get more press coverage giving a false impression of leadership when the regular skus will perform a bit worse.
And thinking about it we did used to have way more tuneable ratios between thing's when north bridges were north bridges, it should not be the case that you have to buy an expensive board either.
Im waiting for some really good "ITX" AM5 Options, and we better get a Single FCH/PCH etc Chipset option for ITX B650/X670/ (Also matx) and ATX + E-ATX should have the Dual FCH/PCH option as the 690 chipset ;)
and MB makers can add more than 2x M.2 or say m.3 slots(if ever come) on ITX MBs use asus dimm.2 and hav 2x of them, or have 2x on front side mb and 2x on back, Zen4 should have enough pci-e lanes for full x16 for gpu and 3x m.2 slots @ minimum, ATX is just too big and mATX isnt small enough! but also have a VRMs in a (non removable) riser like VRM with the PCB go sideways from teh MB to give more space for mb stuff like m.2... I want more Nvme slots vs x16 slots.... dual GPU is dead guys especially for gaming unless ypu do 3dmark hall of fames (which can just be done with a single 600w RTX 40 gpu (1200 watts just in gpus u need a 2000w psu to run your system that 2000 watts heater! no thanks