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Main link: Skylake Overclocking: Regular CPU BCLK overclocking is being removed
Intel has, for many years now, disabled overclocking on all but a select few, highly-priced CPUs, by fixing the maximum clock multiplier. (A practice not limited to Intel, as AMD has also done so on some series). The base clock was technically modifiable, but since it drove not just the CPU, but also RAM and PCIe clocks, you were lucky to get even a few megahertz out of it.
With their newest generation of chips, codenamed "Skylake", the PCIe domain is on a separate clock generator. While Intel officially only supported overclocking on their designated CPUs, and only on their highest-end chipset, SuperMicro, ASRock, and several other motherboard vendors produced motherboards using low-end chipsets that allowed base clock overclocking on any processor. Since this could allow extremely cheap systems to be performance-competitive with much higher-cost systems, albeit with higher cooling requirements and greater risk of failure, Intel was obviously upset.
The story is still developing (no parties have yet been willing to talk on the record, least of all Intel), but the latest BIOS update for several ASRock motherboards includes a firmware update and disabling the BCLK overclocking (the two are believed to be connected - the latest firmware prevents BCLK modification). Additionally, all marketing surrounding this unofficial-official overclocking support has been pulled. SuperMicro and other vendors have not yet done so, but unnamed sources are indicating that they will.
While it may be tempting to put the blame solely on Intel, this was clearly not a feature they intended to support, and the motherboard vendors should have been more cautious about making a feature out of bypassing a limitation on the CPUs, regardless of whether it was an artificial limitation or not. That said, I for one hope AMD's next line of CPUs is both fully competitive with Intel, and fully overclockable across the entire range. Maybe that is what is needed to force Intel to compete on price/performance again.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by gman003 on Thursday February 11 2016, @12:52AM
I'm actually pretty optimistic about Zen. It's too early to know whether it will succeed, but it has all the right pieces to do so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 11 2016, @01:18AM
It's too early to know whether it will succeed,
No, it's never to early to know that AMD will fail like they always do.
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Thursday February 11 2016, @01:33AM
Oh, crap, am I old enough to play the "you damn kids must be too young" card finally? I guess so.
I remember the Athlon (which went blow-for-blow with the Pentium III and first-gen Pentium 4s) and the Athlon 64 (which kicked P4's ass). Even the Phenom wasn't a clear loser - it was 50/50 for each market segment which was better, K10 or Core/Nehalem.
And while I'm too young to actually remember the K6 or preceding, I can at least read the Wikipedia articles and know that it happened. Historically speaking, AMD's current position of being a *losing* underdog is the unusual thing for them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Thursday February 11 2016, @01:48AM
I remember a glossy magazine ad for the AMD 486DX4/100 (a clock-quadrupled 25MHz 486) that boldly proclaimed: "Pentium Performance." -- It basically matched the performance of the first Pentium chips, with which they were competing. Admittedly iirc the first Pentiums were a dirt-slow 60MHz (yes, MHz), but they were Intel's fastest thing going and AMD was keeping up with them with a 486.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 11 2016, @02:04AM
Admittedly iirc the first Pentiums were a dirt-slow 60MHz (yes, MHz)
Having cut my teeth on a Commodore 64, I have to mention that the C64 was a lowly 1 MHz and only 8 bit with only 64 KB of RAM (and not all of it was usable without special tricks). It was insane how much work people were able to squeeze out of that machine, though. Nobody puts that kind of time into optimization anymore.
I do remember moving to an IBM PC clone and having all those MHz and RAM was just a godsend. But Windows 3.1 managed to suck that up pretty quick, and I've been wanting for RAM pretty much ever since. I don't think Apple is helping, either, charging ridiculous amounts for memory when it's actually quite cheap these days.
I never did get into overclocking myself - too expensive if you screw up and I'm not a gambler.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Thursday February 11 2016, @05:41AM
You had 64K in your C64? Well I had to make do with 1K in my Altair 8800.
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Thursday February 11 2016, @06:16PM
you guys. I cant even remember what I used back then, and I think I liked it!
I always wanted a black speaker box that had a computer voice that followed me eveywhere, like in wargames. I never was clear on how that same voice box existed everywhere broderick went.
if everyone at the WOPR facilitiy had one then imagine all of those computer operators having these discussions with the WOPR all at the same time in that big room for mission control. it'd be chaos! Like tricking your xbox to turn off or one person saying HEY GOOGLE and everyone's PC suddenly searching for whatever. Then again, the one guy did ask if the other guy liked vodka. It'd help in a call center environment like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 12 2016, @03:31AM
We had a few Acorn computers in my high school and those had some predefined words they could say if you typed the right command. So we entered commands to sleep for 5 minutes, then say something funny to whoever was in the viscinity. Of course we'd stick around to watch their reaction. Good times. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 11 2016, @04:42AM
Oh, crap, am I old enough to play the "you damn kids must be too young" card finally? I guess so.
No, but I expected you to pull out the "But the Athlon64!!" as if 13-year-old processors have any relevance to today and you didn't disappoint.
(Score: 2) by damnbunni on Thursday February 11 2016, @05:27AM
If an AC says AMD historically fails, 'pulling out' historic non-fails is entirely relevant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 11 2016, @03:35PM
Whatever makes you feel better, fangirl.