Intel locking down CPU Overclocking on Haswell

@ 2013/06/13
Intel's K-series processors offer fully unlocked multipliers that place few restrictions on overclocking. With Sandy Bridge and its Ivy Bridge successor, Intel has also allowed limited overclocking on regular Core i5/i7 CPUs that aren't part of the K series. On those regular-model chips, one may increase the maximum Turbo multipliers by four "bins" above stock, effectively delivering up to a 400MHz overclock. That boost won't get you into the near-5GHz territory attainable with fully unlocked versions, but it's a nice freebie that most CPUs and coolers can tolerate.

When we were discussing Haswell overclocking on this week's podcast, we weren't sure whether Intel had extended limited multiplier control to non-K Haswell products. We checked with the firm and are sad to report that this feature has been removed.

As a result, with Haswell, overclocking support is now almost entirely confined to K-series CPUs.

Comment from jmke @ 2013/06/13
15 years after Intel released the Celeron 300A they have now completely removed any budgetary incentive to overclock the CPU. Because the budget friendly CPUs are completely locked, and paying extra to be able to OC beats the purpose of "getting more out of less", the original reason why the Celeron 300A was so popular.

We knew it was coming, far from surprised, with maximum control they can dictate price 100%.

on the flipside, CPU are no longer the bottleneck in modern PCs, so overclocking doesn't really matter that much. Building a PC with a CPU at 3ghz vs one running at 5ghz, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference if you are not allowed to use benchmark software

Quote:
Based on what we've seen in our labs and heard from industry sources, K-series Haswell CPUs have less clock headroom than their Ivy and Sandy Bridge predecessors.
expect that headroom to decrease as the years go on, and soon no more K-series, bump prices on none K-Series.
Game. Set. Match.