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

[TheLostSwede]

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.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[londiste]

Outside 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

 

[Outback Bronze]

"Intel's 12th Gen non-K processors were not designed for overclocking.

Pigs arse : )

 

[Dux]

Intel: Please don't OC your CPU's via BCLK. It may cause damage to our profits.

 

[roberto888]

Outside 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

External Clockgens only affect the CPU and RAMs BCLK, at least according to Der8auer.

 

[londiste]

External Clockgens only affect the CPU and RAMs BCLK, at least according to Der8auer.

If that is the way they implement it, then it's relatively fine.

 

[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.

 

[dj-electric]

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.

That was true, but PCIE clock now seperate, its not tied to BCLK anymore.

Regarding what enables this option - absolutely BIOS. You can technically have it on any board, its a simple in-die clock change. At least from my understanding, even without such "external clock gen", its not an overclocking fairy.

The reality is that you don't get 3%, you get whatever the ADL-S CPU enables you. Can be 10%, can be 20%, can be 30% or more (with 130MHz BCLK)

 

[AusWolf]

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.

The best way to overclock a locked CPU is by tuning its power limits to fit your VRM and cooling in my opinion.

 

[Chrispy_]

That was true, but PCIE clock now seperate, its not tied to BCLK anymore.

Regarding what enables this option - absolutely BIOS. You can technically have it on any board, its a simple in-die clock change. At least from my understanding, even without such "external clock gen", its not an overclocking fairy.

The reality is that you don't get 3%, you get whatever the ADL-S CPU enables you. Can be 10%, can be 20%, can be 30% or more (with 130MHz BCLK)

The only BIOSes that have external clock gen are flagship-tier dedicated overclocking boards, right?

At $250-500 premium over a perfectly sensible B660 alternative, you might as well just spend that on a much faster chip - going from an i5-12600K on Z690 high-end board to a 12900F on a B660 is a no-brainer for me. No, you can't overclock the 12900F but it already runs at 5.2GHz so how much headroom is there in the silicon left to overclock anyway? All that for a $200 difference in CPU cost.

The overclocking appeal (for me) is taking something cheap and slow and making it much faster without wasting money to do so. If the upcoming B660 boards with external clock gen cost even $100 more than other viable options, then we're looking at i3 4C/8T vs i5 10C/16T and that's too much of a core count advantage for any overclock to make up IMO. The i5 also already has faster clocks and more cache at stock so you have to reach a 15-20% overclock just to match the i5 performance out of the box and that is just the break-even point ignoring the additional cost of the motherboard.

 

[Arcdar]

External Clockgens only affect the CPU and RAMs BCLK, at least according to Der8auer.

In general the same topic was common when FSB-OC was a "up and coming" ( I mean, it was always around..... my Pentium MMX also had a nearly 50% OC under "heavy cooling" --- from 133 to 199mhz ) ... back then they also said that OC will void warranty and will damage more than just the CPU. Then they came up with "special OC" variants and suddenly FSB+Multi OC was fine.... but only for those. And technically they still did void the warranty if you did it but at least "those were supposed to be fine" while all others were "do never even think about it" ...

One of the main things I missed when "multi-only" oc became a thing. finding the perfect balance of FSB/Multi and voltage ...

 

[Hyderz]

Come on intel, let people do what they want with the products that they bought..

 

[Outback Bronze]

finding the perfect balance of FSB/Multi and voltage

Yep I miss those days. Its all a little boring now. Even now the K CPU's will only OC slightly (pending type) as they pretty much boost to the max.

 

[Vayra86]

LOL. Let's OC our entry level CPU on a 500 dollar mobo guys, go.

Aaand influencurs and tubers found another headline to base 15 minutes of bullshit on. Yay.
For everyone else: nothing to see here, really.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Outside 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

Agreed

External Clockgens only affect the CPU and RAMs BCLK, at least according to Der8auer.

Agreed I mentioned elsewhere they'll need to have two clock generators one for CPU buss one for pciex, very uncommon.
And only likely on the highest end board.

Or your 50% Oc will destroy your GPU ,nvme drives and usb chips.

No one's shown a bench with a GPU in action for example.

 

[Vayra86]

The overclocking appeal (for me) is taking something cheap and slow

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

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.

 

[iO]

The only BIOSes that have external clock gen are flagship-tier dedicated overclocking boards, right?

At $250-500 premium over a perfectly sensible B660 alternative, you might as well just spend that on a much faster chip - going from an i5-12600K on Z690 high-end board to a 12900F on a B660 is a no-brainer for me. No, you can't overclock the 12900F but it already runs at 5.2GHz so how much headroom is there in the silicon left to overclock anyway? All that for a $200 difference in CPU cost.

The overclocking appeal (for me) is taking something cheap and slow and making it much faster without wasting money to do so. If the upcoming B660 boards with external clock gen cost even $100 more than other viable options, then we're looking at i3 4C/8T vs i5 10C/16T and that's too much of a core count advantage for any overclock to make up IMO. The i5 also already has faster clocks and more cache at stock so you have to reach a 15-20% overclock just to match the i5 performance out of the box and that is just the break-even point ignoring the additional cost of the motherboard.

The Strix B660-F/G are ~210€ and both support BCLK OC.
But DDR5 prices make them also unattractive until the first DDR4 board with ext clock gen arrives...

 

[Edwired]

If Intel decided to lock down the cpu to prevent overclocking what the point in buying the latest and greatest

 

[docnorth]

Intel's main concern might not be economical. If someone buys a Celeron, a 12100 or even a 12400 and pairs it with a relatively expensive motherboard, then it's a good deal for Intel. But if (average, like me) users who wouldn't buy an unlocked CPU anyway, start flooding fora with CPU or RAM instability issues, or even toasted hardware without mentioning the used voltage, that would be real slander.

External Clockgens only affect the CPU and RAMs BCLK, at least according to Der8auer.

Correct, but did he test NVMe, SATA or USB ports at all? Just asking because I didn't watch the entire video.
At least PCIe runs independent from BCLK since Comet Lake I think.

 

[trsttte]

"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."

Like that's not also true for K processors, lmao.

 

[claster17]

Correct, but did he test NVMe, SATA or USB ports at all? Just asking because I didn't watch the entire video.
At least PCIe runs independent from BCLK since Comet Lake I think.

If 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.

 

[chrcoluk]

CPU's thermal throttle and power limit throttle, undervolt, and bam overclock.

 

[zlobby]

Pigs arse : )

Every machine is a smoke machine if you operate it wrong enough!

 

[Jism]

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.

I'd always prefer FSB over multiplier. The 8320 i had ran at 4.8Ghz with a 300Mhz FSB and 2400Mhz DDR3. It was faster then a 5GHz model.

The 2700x i had simply ran at 4.35Ghz at boost. With a 103Mhz BCLK we where looking at a healthy 4.5 up to 4.65ghz boost.

FSB since the 386 always had favor due to the "rest" of the system, bus and all that being increased.

However bclk can be done even without having NVME controllers, NICS refuse to operate. It however requires boards, that do have a seperate clockgenerator, and not rely on the internal CPU.

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Uncle tom did some testing back in the day, roughtly 5% extra can be archieved, significant reduction in access latency in CCX's and all that.

Yes i agree "better cooling" is the overall answer to having better performance. It means that Boosting(s) and such will hold longer without reaching it's threshold in temperatures.

As for intel: nice gimmick but who buys a 600$ board to start overclocking with a low end chip?

 

[Chrispy_]

The Strix B660-F/G are ~210€ and both support BCLK OC.
But DDR5 prices make them also unattractive until the first DDR4 board with ext clock gen arrives...

Worth knowing. That's only a $50-60 premium over other B660 offerings.
Presumably there's a DDR4 variant coming soon thanks to the DDR5 drought right now?